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PREFACE 


The problem “ to be, or not to be ” has seldom hung 
so long and so indeterminately over a volume as over 
this story. It was originally published twenty years 
ago serially in The School Bulletin as a sequel to Rod- 
erick Hume, and the first hundred pages in book form 
were printed at that time. It had not proved satisfac- 
tory to the author, however, and it was withdrawn for 
a time in the hope that he would find time to re-write 
some parts of it. This has never been done, and the 
interval is now so long that any changes he might make 
would probably be like putting new wine into old bot- 
tles ; so it is thought best to publish the story if at all in 
the form in which it first appeared. AVhatever value it 
may have probably consists mainly in its description of 
rural ^^’ew York schools in 1875. The picture it gives 
may be relied upon as accurate. The commissioners 
convention might be repeated in every detail at the 
nomination of commissioners next year. One of the 
present school commissioners boasts that he won his 
election by circulating the report throughout the dis- 
trict that his competitor was an aristocrat w.ho slept in 
a nightshirt. But the general tone of the school com- 
missioners has vastly improved in these twenty years 


COMMISSION^EK HUME. 


and many of the conditions described in this volume 
no longer prevail. In the licensing of'^teachers an 
entire change has taken place, so that some of the in- 
cidents here given represent a state of things unknown 
to the present generation. The volume is therefore 
offered to the public as a contribution to educational 
history. 

Syracuse, Dec . 31 ^ 1898 . 


' i'- ' 


/ 


A Sequel to Roderick Hume, the Story of a New York Teacher 


Commissioner Hume 

vV 

A STORY OF 


NEW YORK SCHOOLS 


^ BY 

C. W. BARDEEN 

I I 

Editor of the School Bulletin 



SYRACUSE, N. Y. 

0. W. BARDEEX, PUBLISHER 

1895 ) 

Copyright, 1899, by C. W. Bardeen 

1 


TWO COPIES received. 



CONTENTS 


Chapter Page 

I. The District Cokventiox o 

11. Vox POPULI 18 

III. Pig-headed Principles 33 

IV. A Pliant Candidate 51 

V. Two Pedlers 76 

VI. A School Trustee 04 

VII. A ^^Ew Scholar 104 

VIII. The Eev. Ollapod Gulliver 114 

IX. Mrs. Arabella 126 

X. Mr. Gui^iver writes Poetry 143 

XI. The Academy Closes Abruptly 157 

XII. Among the Coui^try Schools 163 

XIII. A Koutine Teacher 173 

XIV. An Unconventional School.. *..187 

XV. An Unexpected Ally 196 

XVI. The Term and the Story End Together.. 204 


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I 


CHAPTER I. 


THE DISTRICT CONVENTION. 

At 10 A. M., on Saturday, October 9th, 1875, the 
delegates to the Republican Convention of the Second 
District, Macedonia County, Hew York, met at the 
American Hotel, Horway, to nominate candidates for 
assemblyman and school-commissioner. A short and 
harmonious session was expected, the slate having 
been amicably made up by leading politicians. The 
present school-commissioner, Tobias Legg, Esq., at- 
torney and counselor-at-law, was to be sent to the leg- 
islature; and Professor Cobb, who was eking out a 
rather meagre income as principal of the academy at 
Chimborazo, was to be made school-commissioner. 
According to custom, Mr. Legg, as the leading candi- 
date from Horway, had been allowed to name the five 
delegates to the caucus from the town of Siam, in 
which the village of Horway was situated. In like 
manner. Professor Cobb had chosen the six delegates 
from his town. These eleven delegates made up a 
majority of the convention, as the eight towns in the 
district had altogether but twenty delegates and espe- 
cially since the delegate from Alaska was not present. 

The convention having been called to order, Mr. 
Herring, of Horway, was made chairman. He took 
his place briskly, made a short speech in which he 

Commissioner Hume, A. 


6 


THE DISTRICT CONVENTION. 


showed that as the Kepublican party had put down 
the rebellion, it was entitled to the assemblyman from 
this district ; and that the prevalent southern outi'ages 
made it absolutely necessary that the school commis- 
sioner of this district should be a Republican. He 
then pronounced the convention ready for business, 
and inquired what was the pleasure of the gentlemen 
present. 

After it had been moved that the meeting proceed 
to nominate a member of assembly, Mr. Domite rose 
to present the name of Esquire Legg. Mr. Legg was 
a worthy young lawyer, he said, of sound Republican 
principles. On several occasions he had taken the 
stump to defend the party of progress and civilization. 
During the six years he had been commissioner, he 
had always shown himself ready to speak for, to work 
for, and to contribute to (cries of “ Hear ! hear ! ”) 
the party which had elected him. Such fidelity de- 
served reward. He would say to this worthy servant, 
“ Come up higher : thou hast been faithful in a small 
ofiice, we will give thee a bigger one.” He was proud 
to offer the name of Tobias Legg, Esq., to represent 
this district in the Assembly ; and he trusted that Mr. 
Legg would be nominated by acclamation. He felt 
that the name would be a talisman of victory. For 
as the crusaders of old shouted : ‘‘'‘In Hoc Signum 
Vincas , (for he was a classical scholar, he said, and 
must be indulged in an occasional relapse to the studies 
of his youth,) so we, bearing aloft upon our ballots the 
name of TOBIAS LEGG-, should march triumphant 
into the Hew Jerusalem at Albany. 


A VOICE IN OPPOSITION. 


r 

Mr. Domite sat down and wiped his face amidst 
<jonsiderable stamping of feet. In afterward detailing 
the events of this memorable convention, he has usu- 
ally referred to this moment as the proudest in his 
life. 

It was understood that no other names would be 
presented, and the chairman was repeating in rapid 
voice the formula : 

Are there any other names to be proposed if not 
gentleman please prepare your ballots the secretary 
will hold the hat to receive — ” 

— when a delegate from the town of Scotia, a heavy- 
booted farmer, rose and said : 

“Mr. Chairman, it kind o’ seems to me you’re sort 
o’ rushin’ things a leetle. We plain folks from the 
country cut an’ dry our own apples an’ we han’t got 
use’ to havin’ other folks cut an’ dry our politics for 
us. I s’pose this Squire Legg is smart enough, ’n’ a 
good Kopublican s’long’s that party is on top. But I 
know this : He’s been commissioner six years, ’n’ 
drawed six thousand dollars for supervisin’ the schools 
o’ .this county; ’n’ he han’t never been in our school- 
house yit. I’m the trustee; have been for ten years; 
han’t got no children o’ my own ’n’ so other folks 
think I’ve got time enough to take care of theirn. I 
don’t pretend to know nothin’ about schools myself. 
I never went to school but one term in my life, ’n’ 
the fust half o’ that I had the measles ’n’ the last half 
of it the teacher had ’em. I an’t no scholard, like 
this ’ere man that slung Latin aroun’ here ; but I 
b’lieve in lamin’, an’ I make jest as good a school as 


8 


THE DISTRICT CONVENTION. 


I kin with what the deestrick allow me. But I git 
took in on teachers. Here comes a chap to me an’ I 
says, ‘ What do you ask? ’ an’ he says, ‘ Ten shillin’,’ 
’n’ I say, ‘ Where’s yer license ? ’ ’n’ he says, ‘ There 
y’are,’ ’n’ I find a fust-grade signed Tobias Legg. 
What more kin I do? I give him the school ’n’ the 
fust thing he does he don’t do nothin’ ’n’ the second 
thing he does he gits pitched out o’ the winder by 
the big boys, ’n’ then there ain’t no peace all winter. 
Now all this is because Tobias Legg’s name onto a 
teacher’s stifkit ain’t wuth no more than a twelve 
year-old boy’s is onto a promissory note. I say a man 
that don’t do his work no better than that, is no man 
to represent this deestrick in the legislatur, ’n’ I’m 
goin’ agin ’im. 

“ Mr. Chairman, I nominate a man who was born 
an’ bred an’ made his money in this county in a 
straight-for’ard, upright way ; a man whose word is 
as good as his note, an’ whose note is as good as the 
bank, an’ who will do our business in Albany as he 
allers did his own business at home, in a prompt, en- 
ergetic, satisfact’ry way. Mr. Chairman, I nominate 
as the Republican candidate for assemblyman, Jim 
Granger, Esq., of Scotia.” 

“ Made a good speech, didn’t he ? ” whispered Mr. 
Baker to Squire Coy, a fellow delegate from Norway. 

‘‘ First rate,” replied that gentleman, “but speeches 
don’t go for much here.” 

“To tell the truth, Squire, I wish Legg had at- 
tended to his commissioner-work better. He hasn’t 
done a thing for the last three years.” 


THE SLATE BROKEN. 


9 


“ O, well, that isn’t in his line. He took it only as 
R step on the ladder, and now he’ll spread himself.” 

This whispered conversation was interrupted by a 
'Call for the informal ballot. The Norway delegates 
voted nonchalantly, but were startled, when the votes 
were counted, to see the expression on the chairman’s 
face. 

“ Gentlemen,” he said nervously, ‘‘ the secretary 
will announce the result of the ballot.” 

“ Whole number of votes cast 19 ; of which 5 are 
for Mr. Legg, and 14 for Mr. Granger.” 

The four Norway delegates who were on the floor 
flew together. After a moment’s consultation, Mr. 
Ooy arose. • 

Mr. Chairman,” he said, ‘‘ as it will be impossible 
for us to finish our work before dinner, I move that 
tlds convention adjourn till 2 o’clock.” 

“ The gentleman from Norway will ’low me to s’g- 
gest that that’s a leetle bit too thin,” remarked the 
delegate from Scotia ; they come here thinkin’ they 
had the thing all fixed, ’n’ now that they find that it’s 
fixed the t’other way, the best thing they can do is to 
grin an’ bear it.” 

All expostulation was unavailing. The convention 
insisted on continuing its work, and it nominated 
James L. Granger by a vote of 14 to 5. 

While Mr. Granger was making a homely but ear- 
nest speech of thanks, the Norway delegates gathered 
-about the chairman and held a hasty conference. As 
R result of it, Mr. Baker, after taking a book from his 
pocket and handing it to Mr. Coy, left the room in 
some haste. No objection was made to proceeding to 


10 


THE DISTRICT CONVENTION. 


the nomination of school commissioner, and the name 
of Professor Cobb was eloquently presented by a del- 
egate from Australia. 

“Are there any other nominations?” asked the 
chairman, looking toward Squire Coy. 

,Mr. Coy rose deliberately, and put himself into a. 
speech-making attitude. The delegates leaned back 
and steeled their souls with patience. 

“ Mr. Chairman,” began the Squire, “ I rise to pre- 
sent the name of a man so eminently qualified for this 
position that I feel sure all personal preferences will 
yield to his unanimous nomination. And because I 
have sometimes feared, Mr. Chairman, that the dig- 
nity and importance of this office were not duly appre- 
ciated, I shall ask your permission to state with pre- 
cision the exact nature of his duties as related to our 
system of public instruction. To do this, it will be 
necessary to review at some length the history of pub- 
lic education, and I shall ask yonr attention to a sketch 
which expresses more briefly and forcibly than I could 
myself the main facts connected with the past of ped- 
agogics.” 

The delegates looked at one another with mingled 
astonishment and indignation, as Mr. Coy opened the 
book and began to read as follows : 

“ ‘ With such an aim, we find ifitle to interest us in our search, 
for data prior to the Greeks, and little outside the Caucasian race. 
Only the Chinese and Japanese deserve a passint^ notice, more, 
however, because among them we find, in almost every respect, 
the opposite of our aims clearly crystallized. 

“ ‘ Although Kong — who lived among the Chinese 500 years 
before Christ, whom they reverently call the ‘ Teacher,’ and who 
is esteemed among us under the Latinized name of Confucius— de- 


TALKING AGAINST TIME. 


11 


dared that the destiny of man was to perfect himself, their en- 
tire educational system aims at limits so rigidly fixed that further 
development is impossible. Their scope of thought—’ ” 

‘‘ See here, Mr. Chairman,” broke in an angry del- 
egate from Australia, are we free-born American 

citizens, or are we a pack of d d fools ? Do you 

suppose we are going to sit here all day, to hear about 
education in China and Japan since five hundred years 
before Christ? Not by a blank blanked sight.” 

That this outburst had the sympathy of the audi- 
ence was evident enough, but the Chairman rapped 
on the desk and announced in parliamentary tones : 

‘‘ The gentleman is wholly out of order. Mr. Coy 
has the fioor.” 

Not a delegate dared leave the room, as it was not 
known just how large a majority the Cobb men could 
depend upon. So they all leaned back and wrestled 
as they best could with their discomfort while Mr. 
Coy placidly read on : 

“As I was quoting, 

“ ‘Their scope of thought, their manners and customs, the en- 
tire social fabric, everything that relates to the life of man, has 
assumed positive, unalterable forms ; and the aim of Chinese ed- 
ucation’ ” 

* * * * * 

Meanwhile Tom Baker was hunting up Koderick 
Hume, the principal of the Norway Free High School. 
He found him at the building, working with chemical 
apparatus. 

“ See here, Hume,” he said, “ we want you to be 
our next school commissioner.” 

“ O come, now, make it Secretary of State,” laughed 
Koderick ; “ you know well enough that Gov. Tilden 


12 


THE DISTRICT CONVENTION. 


needs a vigorous young politician like me to look 
after things here while he gets ready for Washington. 
See there, now, Mr. Baker; look! look 1 how’s that? ” 
and he pointed to the rings of white smoke which at 
this moment began to rise from the phosphuretted 
hydrogen. 

“ Whew ! looks better than it smells,” said Mr. 
Baker compelled to a moment’s admiration. ‘‘But 
come, now, I mean business. Put out your light 
there, and listen to me. 

“ You know Professor Cobb was to be the next com- 
missioner. He has a tough time of it at Chimborazo, 
and we were willing to put him in if he would sup- 
port Legg for the Assembly. He agreed, and each 
man chose his own delegates. How what does that 
miserable sneak do but betray us ! He has six dele- 
gates at his back and only needs four more ; he gets 
two from Scotia by supporting their candidate for 
Assembly, and he probably counts on the two from 
Epirus because their boys began to go to school here 
before he left. You know them — Charley Camp and 
Charley Pease. They both live over the town line, 
and their fathers are the two delegates. The rest of 
the delegates we have a hold on, through some of the 
county nominations. We could have fixed them on 
Assembly, if we had known it was necessary, but this 
wretched Cobb sprung a trap on us, and Legg is 
beaten. To tell the truth, I don’t care much about 
that, for the man that is nominated is a better fellow. 
But you see Cobb did this out of personal spite, be- 
cause most of us were on the board of education when 
he was turned out of the school here. Of course we 


THE OFFICE UNDER CONSIDERATION. 13 

aren’t going to let him get the best of us, so we have 
set Squire Coy talking against time. He rose about 
eleven o’clock to make a nomination for commissioner, 
but as he doesn’t know yet whom he is going to nomi- 
nate, he is reading aloud as a part of his speech, your 
‘ History of Pedagogy,’ that I happened to have in my 
pocket, and lent him. There are 130 pages, and we 
calculate that it will last till three o’clock, and, as 
Mute Herring is chairman, nothing can be done till 
we get our plans fixed. 

“ So we want to nominate you. The Epirus men 
will go for you with a rush, and* you will be nomi- 
nated and elected without any particular effort. Come, 
now, what do you say ? ” 

“ Why, I’d like to oblige you in this matter, Mr. 
Baker. But, frankly, I can’t afford it. I get $1,500 
now. A commissioner gets only $800, with a far too 
meagre allowance of $200 for travelling-expenses. I 
have my college debts to pay, and I cannot stand the 
deduction.” 

“ O, you don’t need to give up your school, you 
know ; nobody expects a commissioner to devote to 
this work more than his spare time. Legg, here, car- 
ried the thing a little too far ; he got so that he 
wouldn’t examine teachers and licensed everybody. 
You ought to hold examinations tWo or three times a 
year, look after the institute, and visit a few of the 
larger schools in your vicinity. Nobody would ask 
any more of you, in the way of supervision.” 

“But the Code says the commissioner ought to 
spend threedialf days a year in every school in his 
district.” 


14 


THE DISTRICT CONVENTION. 


“Yes; and it says you ou^ht to examine them in 
United States, English, Continental and Universal 
History ; and expect ‘ minute, accurate and extensive 
knowledge of the same.’ To try to do either one 
would make you a laughing-stock. There are 157 
schools in this district, most of them in session 28 
weeks, of 5 days each ; 140 days altogether. If you 
always knew just when a school was in session, which 
you won’t ; and if you devoted all these 140 days te 
visiting schools, which you can’t ; and if you so ar- 
ranged your trip as to go from one to another without 
loss of time, which is impossible, you couldn’t visit 
every school twice and stay long enough either to help 
the teacher or to learn anything about her. The Code 
requires what can’t be done, my boy, and nobody will 
expect you to comply with it. Go on with your 
school just the same as usual, give what time you can , 
to your commissionership, and do what you do hon- 
estly and judiciously. You needn’t fear that anybody 
will make you trouble.” 

“ I couldn’t do that Mr. Baker ; I certainly couldn’t. 
All the supervision these 157 schools get they must 
get from the commissioner, and I could not satisfy 
my conscience by giving to 157 schools, two hundred 
teachers and more than live thousand pupils the mere 
shreds of my time. !No, sir ; if I took hold of this at 
all, I should give most of my time to visiting the 
schools. I could not do otherwise.” 

“Then take an insurance agency, like Jeffrey, in 
the South District. He gets a good salary and all his 
travelling-expenses paid by a fire-insurance company, 


WAYS OF EKINO OUT A SALARY. 15 

and so publishes glowing accounts of the number of 
schools he visits.” 

“ Excuse me,” said Koderick stiffly ; “ I think that 
proposition might better be made to Mr. Abrahams. 
Would it not be well for me to take an agency for 
some series of school-books, at the same time ? Per- 
haps a little apparatus and school-furniture business- 
might be added, and possibly a little bargaining in old 
clothes ? ” 

“ Why, for that matter, that’s about what they say 
Jeffrey does,” laughed Tom Baker ; “ but I confess it 
doesn’t seem to be quite in your line. I tell you what 
we can do,” he added after a moment’s pause: “get 
the Board of Supervisors to give you five hundred 
dollars extra for travelling-expenses. They do that 
in three or four counties, and 1 think I could fix it for 
you here.” 

“ But that’s a contingency,” said Eoderick, “ and I 
can’t afford to take the risk.” 

Tom Baker was puzzled. Time was fiying, Eoderick 
was the only person they could depend upon to beat 
Professor Cobb, and yet every ground of fitness for 
the position was a ground for declining it. Tom was 
almost in despair, when a happy thought struck him.. 

“Strange, I didn’t think of this before,” he said; “I 
have just the very proposition for you. See here,. 
Hume, my nephew is coming home next May to fit 
for college. He is an orphan, and has been spending 
a year in Europe, with some of his mother’s friends. 
I am his guardian, and I have been thinking that it 
is time for me to select a tutor for him. He is a 
delicate young fellow, arid I had determined to offer 


16 


THE DISTRICT CONVENTION. 


•some bright young graduate a thousand dollars a year 
for two years to fit him for college. He isnH to be 
pushed very hard, and I want somebody who can 
associate with him, play ball with him, travel with 
him, and be a friend as well as a tutor. You are just 
the man, and 1 will engage you now for that very 
thing. And I will be entirely satisfied with such time 
as you can give without neglecting your duties as 
-commissioner.” 

“ I hardly know what to say to this,” said Roderick. 

‘‘ I know,” said Tom Baker ; and with the momen- 
tum of thorough conviction he carried Roderick with 
him to the convention. 

When they entered, they found the chairman and 
-most of the delegates smoking, in all sorts of atti- 
tudes. Some of the delegates were conversing, some 
were yawning, one was fast asleep ; but on through 
the incense and the hum of voices Squire Coy kept 
possession of the floor, and was reading monotonously : 

“ ‘ Herbart had shown the absurdity of assuming a number of 
special, independent faculties of the soul; Benecke had proved 
that the soul is capable of development, a thing that grows; the 
next step was taken by Herbert Spencer, who shows that this 
growth is organic, subject to the ordinary laws of organic devel- 
opment ’ ” 

When Tom Baker and Roderick entered, the Squire 
looked up, caught a glance from his fellow delegate, 
^nd concluded his two hours’ harangue as follows : 

“ But, gentlemen, as I look about, I observe that 
you are weary, and it is hardly just to you to continue 
this charming history to tiie present time, as I had 
intended. In the absence of the gentleman whom I 


THE BITER BITTEN. 


IT 


am about to nominate, I was undertaking to demon- 
strate bow essential to the guardianship of our national 
liberty through that system of education, which, thus 
developed through twenty-three centuries, has now 
grown into the aegis of our country’s safety, is the 
selection for an office so fundamental to the useful- 
ness of our system of public instruction as that of 
school commissioner, of a man whose talents, educa- 
tion and experience fit him capably to fulfil its duties. 
But, Mr. Chairman, the man whom I shall name has 
just entered this room, and his presence is the only 
eulogy he needs. Mr. Chairman, I have the honor ta 
propose as the Bepublican candidate for school com- 
missioner, Koderick Hume, principal of the Norway 
Free High School and College Preparatory Institu- 
tion.” 

Tom Baker hastened to introduce Koderick to the 
delegates from Epirus, and he passed the word to- 
other delegates who were looking to the support of 
Norway for minor offices on the county ticket. On 
the informal ballot, Koderick got 10 votes to 9 for 
Professor Cobb, and on the first formal ballot he was 
nominated by a vote of 11 to 8. 

As the delegates hurried out to dinner, Koderick 
and Professor Cobb were brought face to face. Kod- 
erick held out his hand, but Professor Cobb declined 
it. 

“Excuse me,” he said, “this makes twice.” 

And he refused any further conversation. 


CHAPTER II. 


vox POPULI. 

A day or two after his nomination Roderick Hume 
received the following note : 

• Editorial Rooms, Vox Populi, 

Norway, N. Y., Oct. 11, 1875. 

Dear Sir: 

Please send me autobiography by eleven to-morrow at latest, 
in time for this week’s issue. 

Yours truly, 

Valentine Varney. 

Roderick read the note a second time with increas- 
ing amazement. He turned it over, in vain search 
for some secret explanation. 

‘‘ Who sent you with this ? ” he asked of the mes- 
senger, a slouchy boy with impudent face half hid- 
den under a long-visored cap. 

“Who? Why Yarhey, in course.” 

“ And who is Yarney ? ” 

“ Yarney ? The editor of the ‘ Yox,’ to be sure. 
he wants ’n ans’r right off.” 

“ He shall have it,” said Roderick ; and he wrote as 
follows : 

I was born in Massachusetts, went to school in Vermont, 
graduated at a college in Connecticut, and now teach school in 
New York. I am a tremendously smart fellow, and shall make 
a rousing commissioner. 


•( 18 ) 


Roderick Hume. 


A COUNTRY EDITOR. 


19 

“ There,” he said grimly, as lie folded the sheet and 
handed it to the boy. “ Tell Mr. Varney I suppose 
that is what he wants. It contains all the essential 
facts in condensed form.” 

But the next day a little man with red hair and a 
long nose handed Koderick the following card : 

“Vox PopuLi, Vox Dei.” 

Sorwag ^ax §oguU, \ 

\ f ahMilie f arief, ; 

^1.50 -A. YDESAII. 

Circulation greater than all others in the \ 

County. : 

: Advertising rates made known on application. : 

Moderatei^^alary for so much activity,” thought 
Hoderick, as he noted the amliiguous reading; Imt 
he motioned Mr. Varney to a seat and awaited his 
pleasure. 

“ I called about that little sketch of yours,” the ed- 
itor said; “it was good; tip-top. But you see the 
voters want a little more of it. It’s got all the facts, 
and puts ’em clear. But I’m afraid if we should print 
it just that way they’d think it was sort o’ queer we 
didn’t tell ’em some more. They expect about so 
long a notice of each candidate. The county judge, 
he has to have a good full column ; so does a senator ; 
an assemblyman wants at least a half, and a school 
commissioner pretty near that, for you know he holds 
office three years. You see if a man don’t have more 
than three or four lines they think he hasn’t done 


20 


vox POPULI. 


much. They all vote according to the and I 

want to make sure to get you elected. By the-way, 
you never subscribed for the Vox ? ” 

“ Well, no, I never did,” said Roderick ; I suppose 
it is time that I should do so,” an(i he handed the ed- 
itor a five-dollar bill. 

“ I find I haven’t any change with me,” said Mr. 
Yarney, after a pretence at fumbling for his pocket- 
book, “ but never mind. I’ll credit you on account ;” 
and he complacently folded the bill and placed it in 
his vest pocket ; of course there’ll be a good many 
little printing jobs connected with the election,” he 
added. 

“ Perhaps you think I ought to date my subscrip- 
tion back to the time I came here,” said Roderick, 
eying Mr. Yarney rather curiously. 

‘‘ That would be a good idea,” said ti/e editor eager- 
ly. “It was just Hew Year’s wasn’t it? Let me 
see — ” 

“ O never mind,” said Roderick, “ I am afraid it 
would be difficult for you to make up a set of the 
back numbers.” 

“ I don’t know as I could do that,” said Mr. Yarney, 
his face lengthening. “ I thought you wanted to just 
call it from January first. Candidates usually feel 
pretty liberal. Besides, it is the duty of every citizen, 
and especially every man drawing public money, to 
support his home paper.” 

“ I doubt that,” said Roderick ; “ I wouldn’t give 
much for a paper that asks a man to subscribe on any 
other grounds than that it will be worth to him more 
than the subscription price. How, I have seen your 


ORITICISma A NEWSPAPER. 21 

paper occasionally, and to be frank with you, I have 
never found anything I wanted to read in it.” 

“ You must be a curious sort of a man if you take 
no interest in home news,” said the editor, somewhat 
nettled. 

“ I do take an interest in home news, Mr. Yarney ; 
but that is just what I never find in the Yox. Have 
you a copy with you ? ” 

Mr. Yarney reluctantly handed him the last num- 
ber, remarking that it had been issued under great 
press of other engagements, and was by no means a 
fair specimen. 

“O, I don’t know,” said Roderick, ‘‘this look& 
about like the rest of them. To begin with, it is a 
‘ patent outside,’ printed in Hew York, and containing 
every form of advertisement for which money can be- 
got. Of course, I never look at that.” 

“ Why, my subscribers often say that it is the best, 
part of my paper,” interrupted Mr. Yarney, eagerly. 

“ Indeed ? ” queried Roderick, with a sarcastic 
smile, that made Mr. Yarney hate him. “ Well, turn 
inside ; here are fourteen columns, of which eight are 
filled with advertisements, most of them standing from 
week to week, and put in, I suppose, to save type- 
setting ? ” 

“You seem to be pretty familiar with the printing- 
office, sir,” said Mr. Yarney, haughtily. 

“ Of the other six columns, 'three are editorial,” 
continued Roderick. “ The first one summons every 
voter to rally to the Republican party, and sweep the 
political field, as the mighty besom of England used 

Commissioner Hume, B. 


22 


4 

vox POPULI, 


to sweep the ocean. That’s a tolerable piece of writ- 
ing. To be sure it doesn’t mean anything, and not a 
dozen of your readers know what a besom is, and it 
wasn’t England that used the emblem, but Holland. 
Still, it reads well enough, and we might suppose you 
were terribly in earnest, except for the next editorial, 
which just as eloquently advises your readers to buy 
a pair of elegantly-fitting French-made corsets at 
Skeele’s bankrupt sale, which must positively be 
closed out this week, owing to other engagements of 
the auctioneer.” 

“ Look here, sir ; I didn’t come here to get lessons 
in editing a newspaper,” shouted Mr. Yarney, goaded 
to wrath, and attempting to seize the sheet. 

“ O, I beg your pardon,” interposed Roderick, with 
imperturbable equanimity. “ I shouldn’t presume to 
take that liberty. I am merely defending myself 
from the charge of neglecting my duty as a citizen, 
in hitherto failing to subscribe.” 

“ But you have no right to complain because we put 
in advertisements,” replied the editor, calming down, 
as he refiected that he could avenge his insulted pro- 
fession by charging Roderick double for all his cam- 
paign printing ; “ a paper has to rely principally upon 
its advertisements for support.” 

‘‘Ho, indeed,” replied Roderick ; “ I don’t complain 
because you insert advertisements, but because you 
so mix them up with your reading-matter, that no one 
can tell whether you are saying what you think, or 
what you are paid to insert. You will get about so 
much for advertisements anyway, and if you would 
have a regular place and a regular price for them. 


CRITICISING A NEWSPAPER. 23 

they would take less of your space and do the adver- 
tisers more good. Why, I feel insulted when I am 
asked to read a column of ‘Local News,’ like this, in 
which I have to stumble over two paid puffs to get at 
every paragraph of intelligence. Besides, as 1 said 
before, you don’t give any local news. 1 learn here 
that Miss Libbie Richardson, of Utica, is visiting 
Miss Ida Johnson, and that a six-year-old-girl has had 
a birth-day party — ^both items evidently furnished 
you by some one who wanted to appear in print. But 
what else is there here in the way of local informa- 
tion ? Where is your correspondence from the other 
villages of the county ? Where is the description of 
the new mill that Tom Baker is putting up ? Where 
is your report of that important trial for assault and 
battery, in which every teacher in the vicinity is in- 
terested ? ” 

“ But, my dear sir, I don’t have time to look these 
things up.” 

‘‘ Then you should get more time or more help. 
Wliy, you have never said a word about John Blars- 
ton since he sold out his clothing business and went to 
New York ; and yet the New York Planet^ last month 
gave two whole columns to a description of his career 
in Wall St., whence he retired after a short and ex- 
iting experience, with more than a million dollars. 
The Planet gave his biography from boyhood up, the 
history of his business here, and more information 
about this village than I have got from both the Nor- 
way papers since I came. Now if that subject was 
worth two columns of a New York city daily, wasn’t 
it at least worth copying in the Vox f ” 


24 : 


VOX POPULI. 


‘‘Copying?” Mr. Yarn ey laughed. “Why, Mr. 
Hume, how much space in the Vox do you suppose 
those two columns would take ? They were in fine 
type, set solid, and would fill the whole six columns 
of reading-matter/ we print.” 

“Yery good, give it the space. Your readers 
wouldn’t complain, for it is an interesting sketch, 
well-told, and of permanent value to everybody wlm 
knew Mr. Blarston here.” 

“There I must differ with you, Mr. Hume,” said 
the editor, rubbing his hands deprecatingly ; “people 
don’t want long stories. The feature of the day is the 
paragraph. I meant to have alluded to this lucky 
stroke of Blarston’s, and am glad you called my atten- 
tion to it. How if I say ‘ John Blarston, formerly a 
well-known merchant of Norway, has just made a 
million dollars in Wall St.,’ that’s all there is of it, 
and people will read it and be satisfied. My readers 
know all about Norway. What is the use of describ- 
ing to them what lies right under their eyes ? ” 

“ Because that is just what they take the most in- 
terest in. If you describe what they have seen and 
thought, you confirm their observation and judgment, 
which pleases them. If you describe what they have 
omitted to see or think, you give them an opportunity 
to verify your statements, and that pleases them. 
And it is the details which give life and human interest 
to a story. One of your paragraphs tells me that 
Horace Ward is to be hung for killing his wife. This 
statement is of no value to me. I don’t know Horace 
Ward, or his wife, or any of their friends ; and the 
addition of another to the list of wife-murderers doe& 


CKITICISING A NEWSPAPER. 


25 


not materially alter any opinion of mine or suggest any 
new thought. But the Planet has given to this case 
altogether a dozen columns closely packed with facts 
and incidents. The tragedy lifted the vail from the 
lives of all upon whom it laid its hand. The reporter 
peered beneath, scanned every feature, and depicted 
in his series of letters the life-history of two souls. I 
have no vulgar curiosity about Horace Ward and his 
wife, but I have a deep interest in human nature; and 
this reporter’s story, laying bare the secret develop- 
ment of an evil passion till from a tendency it grew 
into a tyrant, rouses in me the same interest which 
the anatomist feels in witnessing a skilful dissection. 
For the murderer and his victim I feel pity, as for all 
who sin and suffer^ From their story, thus accident- 
ally made known, I learn something of universal 
human nature, which it is my fault if I fail to use to 
the advantage of myself and others.” 

‘‘Let me advise you, as a Republican candidate, not 
to be too liberal in praising the Planet , said Mr. Yar- 
ney, sneeringly. 

“O, I abominate the politics,” replied Rode- 

rick, “ and I think it indulges personal spite with less 
restraint from conscience and decency than any other 
paper I ever read. But it is by all means the most ably- 
edited paper in this country. Though it be a year 
old, a stray copy is always readable, because it is 
master of the two crowning glories of a news-gatherer : 
•elaboration of the incidents which supply life and hu- 
man interest ; elimination of all that is unessential or 
•can be inferred.” 


26 


vox POPULI. 


‘^Well, you see I don’t have any time to go into- 
these things,” said Mr. Yarney, who had been growing 
impatient; “you outsiders think that an editor has 
nothing else to do but to sit in an easy chair and get 
up articles, but as a matter of fact that is the least part 
of our work. We have to look to our bread and but- 
ter. Now the subscriptions and advertisements don’t 
pay for the paper and printing, and we have to 
get our living out of public jobs. That’s where the 
hard work comes in. Why, how much do you sup- 
pose I had to give the clerk of the supervisors last- 
year, to get the printing of the proceedings?” 

“ I really couldn’t guess.” 

“ First and last, it cost me over sixty dollars, and 
then he came near giving it to the Intelligencer. For 
the forty-eight hours before it was decided, I never 
let that clerk out of my sight. I sat in the board- 
meeting all day, I took my meals at the same hotel, 
and I played California Jack with him till he went to 
bed, both nights. I knew if the Intelligencer man got 
hold of him, I was a gone coon.” 

“ What was your profit on publishing the proceed- 
ings?” 

“ O, a big pile. You see we put in our estimate by 
the page on long primer solid, and theh we printed it 
in small pica leaded. Besides we got in a good many 
extras, and did well on it. It’s out of such jobs as 
this that we get our living.” 

“ But don’t you believe the same amount of time 
and money put into your newspaper would have 
brought you more profit in additional subscribers, to 
say nothing about self-respect and the risk of defeat ?. 


TRICKS OF THE TRADE. 


27 


If you and the Intelligencer man would shake hands, 
and agree to vie with each other only in making the 
better paper, instead of in securing the public pap, 
wouldn’t you both make money faster? I notice 
that where one of two village papers is well-edited, 
the other has to follow suit, and each profits by the 
other’s excellence. There are dozens of places no larger 
than Norway that support two capital newspapers, 
fairly reflecting, as newspapers should, all there is 
done and said and felt in the community. Such coun- 
try papers are considered far more profitable than the 
city dailies.” 

“ It is easy enough for you to reason it out,” said 
Mr. Yarney, “but if you tried it here you would 
starve to death while you were getting started. We 
have to take advantage of politics, and make our 
living out of the machinery. And of course,” here 
the editor smiled propitiatingly, “ we expect some 
patronage from you. But you get off cheap anyhow. 
In this county most of the heavy work is in getting 
nominated. Professor Cobb laid out of his pocket a 
good hundred dollars for the nomination, not to men- 
tion his time.” 

“ Indeed ? ” inquired Roderick with some curiosity. 
Mr. Yarney was a talkative fellow, and might as well 
reveal some of the workings of county politics. “ I 
suppose he was very careful to put this money where 
it would be useful.” 

“Useful? You bet. Nobody knows better how to 
handle printer’s ink. Why, he had the thing sure. 
But he went and mixed up some personal feelings 
with it and tried to run the whole caucus. Then he 


28 


vox POPULI. 


slipped up and you slipped in, but so far as the cam- 
paign went, he did it beautiful. Did you see the at- 
tack on him in tlie Constantinojple Free Press f ITo ? 
Well, by George, it was rich. You see the only op- 
posing candidate, Wetherby, was a teacher over that 
way, and everybody thought he wrote the article, and 
blamed him for being so mean. It said Cobb was a 
snob because he had a college education ; that he was 
stingy as dirt or he never would have been worth ten 
thousand dollars ; that he had no sense of honor, or 
he would never have left the Norway high school 
when it needed him most, and gone over to the Alps 
Collegiate just because he thought he could get rich 
faster. In fact, it accused Cobb in the bitterest and 
most emphatic way of everything that Cobb wanted 
to have thought true ; wdiile people read it and said 
‘What a personal matter Wetherby is making of it. 
Poor fellow, he sees he has no chance.’ ” 

“ Did Wetherby write it ? ” 

“Wetherby? no indeed. He is the mildest, most 
inoffensive fellow in the world. Why, Cobb wrote it 
himself, of course, and then came out the next week 
in a dignified card deprecating any resort to indi- 
vidual abuse, and stating his own opinion that Mr. 
Wetherby was a careful and well-meaning teacher, to 
whom he would cheerfully give his hearty support if 
the convention nominated him. That killed Wether- 
by. He didn’t even get the delegates of his own 
town.” 

“And was it in this style of campaign that Profes- 
sor Cobb spent his hundred dollars ? ” 

“ O, not entirely. He was out of school four weeks. 


AT THREE DOLLARS A COLUMN. 


29 


riding around the district, and he had to hire a woman 
teacher to take his place. Besides, there are one or 
two inside men in the county that have to be doctored 
in advance for any work you want them to do. But 
for three weeks Cobb had from half a column to two 
columns’ space in every paper in the district. Demo- 
crat and Republican alike.” 

“ What is the general charge for this space ? ’’'queried 
Roderick. 

“ O, for a good square editorial, where we have to * 
write it ourselves, we charge three dollars a column. 
If it is handed in to us all ready to print, we can 
make it two and a half, and perhaps shade that a little 
on a big bill. Let me read you what 1 have got fixed 
up for you in to-day’s paper.” 

Mr. Yarney drew from his pocket a slip of proof, 
and read as follows : 

A NOBLE NOMINATION. 

Seldom does it fall to our lot to chronicle a nomination in 
€very way so desirable as that of Professor Roderick Hume for 
the office of School Commissioner in the Second District. From 
every point of view in which we may consider him, as a teacher, 
a scholar, a citizen, a gentleman and a social companion, he is 
singularly fit for this position. 

. As a teacher, he has been for nearly a year the principal of our 
high school, and from all quarters we hear expressed a very lively 
satisfaction with his efforts. His pupils obey him without any 
compulsion, and his teachers regard him with unaffected esteem. 

His scholarship is precisely of that kind we need for this of- 
fice. He graduated high in his class at an Eastern college, and 
will feel an intelligent sympathy with our young teachers who 
are striving for the rudiments of an education. 

Instead of confining himself, like most teachers, to the duties 
of his position, he has taken the true patn of the citizen in our 
nominations and elections, and shown an activity which is un- 


30 


vox POPULI. 


fortunately very rare among those who are so well fitted to exert 
an infiuence at the polls. 

As a gentleman, as a social companion, as a practical man of 
the world, he has every qualification conceivable. His training 
has been cosmopolitan, and he happily unites the culture of 
Massachusetts, the heartiness of Vermont, the shrewdness of 
Connecticut and the liberality of New York. 

It sometimes happens that we are obliged to receive with 
silence and even with applause a nomination which is shamefully 
unworthy; but for once we revel in the freedom to say of a can- 
didate what we really and emphatically belie «"e, and to announce 
. our solemn conviction that the election of Roderick Hume will 
reflect honor upon every citizen and glory upon every school- 
house in this Commissioner District. VOTE FOR HUME. 

Roderick read the article once or twice, and then 
entered into a calculation. 

“Mr. Yarnej,” he said, “how much do you intend 
to charge me for this ? ” 

“ Why, at our regular rates it would be about 
twelve shillings. When we lead it out it will take 
pretty near half a column.” 

“ Then, for the balance of that five dollar bill, you 
could piit in two such notices, and some over? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“Well, Mr. Yarney, I make you this proposition. 
Keep this article and all other articles about me out 
of your paper, and never refer to me during the can- 
vass, except in giving the list of candidates, and the 
balance of that bill is yours.” 

“ Do you want me to understand — ” began the edi- 
tor, flushing ; but Roderick interrupted him : 

“ I want you to understand that I don’t pay for 
being puffed, that 1 don’t want to be puffed, and that 
what you call puffing I call infernal impudence : that’s 


A CHANGE OF ADJECTIVES. 31 

what I want you to understand,’’ repeated Eoderick, 
losing his temper. “ Let me see this article, or any- 
thing like it in your paper, and I will haul you up 
before the police court for stealing three dollars and 
a half of my money.” 

‘‘ By blank, you won’t be troubled by any puffing,” 
yelled the’editor, almost in a screech, and so nearly 
insane, that he had his thumb and linger on the live 
dollar bill, to give it back and show that he had man- 
hood enough left to be angry, Eecovering from the 
temptation, he rushed over to his office, and in an hour 
was working olf from his slow press the week’s edi- 
tion of the Yox^ containing this article : 

A DISGRACEFUL NOMINATION. 

Seldom does it fall to our lot to chronicle a nomination in 
every way so despicable as that of Professor Roderick Hume for 
School Commissioner in the Second District. From every point 
of view in which we may consider him, as a teacher, a scholar,, 
a citizen, a gentleman and a social companion, he is singularly 
unfit for this position. 

As a teacher, he has been for nearly a year the principal of 
our high school, and from all quarters we hear expressed a very 
lively dissatisfaction with his efforts. His pupils obey him only 
upon compulsion, and his teachers regard him with unaffected 
disgust. 

His scholarship is precisely not of that kind we need for this 
office. He graduated high in his class at an Eastern college, and 
will feel no intelligent sympathy with our young teachers who 
are striving for the rudiments of an education. 

Instead of confining himself, like most teachers, to the duties 
of his position, he has taken the base path of the partisan in our 
nominations and elections, and shown an activity which is fort- 
unately very rare among those who are so ill fitted to exert an in- 
fluence at the polls. 

As a gentleman, as a social companion, as a practical man of 
the world, he has no conceivable qualification. His training has 


32 


vox POPULI. 


been cosmopolitan, and he miserably unites the conceit of Massa- 
chusetts, the greenness of Vermont, and the meanness of Con- 
necticut. Surely we are not so utterly destitute of good men in 
this county as to be forced to import our educational officers 
from New England. 

It sometimes happens that we are obliged to receive with si- 
lence and even with applause a nomination which is shamefully 
unworthy; but for once we revel in our freedom to say of a can- 
didate what we really and emphatically believe, and to announce 
our solemn conviction that the election of Roderick Hume will 
reflect disgrace upon every citizen and shame upon every school- 
house in this Commissioner District. VOTE AGAINST HUME. 


CHAPTEK III. 


PIG-HEADED PRINCIPLES. 

‘‘ See here, Hume, what on earth have you been do- 
ing to Yal Yarney?” cried Tom Baker, entering 
Poderick’s room with a copy of the Yox damp from 
the press. 

‘‘ Nothing like what he deserves,” replied Poderick. 
“We had a little discussion as to the province of coun- 
try journalism : that was all.” 

“ Well, you got him hopping mad, didn’t you ? ” 

“ I believe he did go away somewhat perturbed in 
spirit,” replied Poderick, demurely. “ He didn’t say 
anything about calling again.” 

“Exactly. Well, read that:” and Mr. Baker held 
out the newspaper, and pointed to the leading editori- 
al in double-leaded type.” 

“ This looks familiar,” said Poderick, his brow low- 
ering as he recognized the first words. But as he fin- 
ished the sentence he began to laugh, and before he 
reached the last paragraph he fairly shook with mer- 
riment. 

“You seem to find it very amusing,” said Tom, 
scowling. 

“ Why, the joke of it is that the fellow brought this 
*very article to me in proof, not three hours ago, only 
it was then full of sickening fiattery. I told him if he 
( 33 ) 


34 


PIG-HEADED PRINCIPLES. 


■dared to publish any such puffs of me, 1 would prose- 
cute him before the police court. So he changed all 
the negatives to affirmatives and vice versa, and has 
vented his spite without any increased cost of type-set- 
ting. He is sharper than he looks,” and Koderick 
laughed again, as the full humor of revelling to say 
what we really and emphatically believe ” struck 
him with redoubled force. 

“ But how do you expect to be elected, if you be- 
gin by quarreling with men like Yarney?” continued 
Mr. Baker, impatiently. 

“ You know Thackeray used to say there were some 
people by whom he dearly loved to be hated. I feel 
that way toward men like Yarney. Their slanders 
are compliments.” 

“That might be true if Yarney were a private 
citizen, but you must remember that he controls one 
of the two leading papers of this district. Five hun- 
dred voters have already got their first impressions of 
you from that article.” 

“ Why you don’t mean to say that anybody regards 
the opinion of that miserable hireling scribbler?” 
protested Koderick, in honest astonishment. “ His 
readers can not have observed how he devotes his 
editorial vigor first to politics and then to corsets, or 
anything that will put a dollar in his pocket, without 
discovering that his praise of a man means only that 
the man has paid to get himself puffed.” 

“ O, I don’t know about that. A criminal at the 
bar pays his lawyer to get himself puffed, but the* 
verdict of the jury depends a good deal upon the 
puffng, after all. The newspaper is the candidate’s 


POLITICAL EXPOSTULATION. 


35 


advocate with the people, and if they can say nothing 
good of him, the people think there is nothing good 
to be said.” 

“Your comparison of the candidate with the crim- 
inal is not flattering. If his habits are similar while 
getting into office, it is not remarkable that they are 
identical afterwards.” 

“ O, come Hume, be reasonable, and revolve with 
the world awhile before you change its motion. You* 
mean well, but in this matter you are flying off at a 
tangent. Politics is a business, with an established 
routine. Put yourself into the hands of yo\jr friends, 
this time, and before you are through you will see 
good reason for many customs that now seem arbi- 
trary or improper. I suppose Yarney wanted to be 
paid for his puffing, didn’t he ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“How much ? ” 

“ Three dollars a column, with a deduction of one- 
sixth, provided I furnished him ready-made his un- 
biased opinions of me.” 

“Well, now, just look at it,” said Tom Baker, 
soothingly ; “ the whole thing wouldn’t have cost you 
ten dollars, and even that the District Committee 
would have paid, if you didn’t want to foot the bill. 
What was the use of making all this disturbance about 
a little matter like that ? ” 

For a moment Koderick looked at Mr. Baker search- 
ingly. Then he drew back his head with a quick ges- 
ture, and sighed. 

“ I believe it’s all a theory,” he said. 


36 


PIG-HEADED PRINCIPLES. 


“ What is all a theory ? ’’ asked Mr. Baker, not pre- 
pared for so sudden a change of subject. 

“ ‘ The gentleman in politics,’ ” replied Roderick. 
“You are a gentleman, Mr. Baker, if I know one, but 
your course throughout this whole commissioner bus- 
iness has been unlike you. IS’ow you crown all by 
supposing that it was because I am too stingy to pay 
three dollars a column that I object to Yal Yarney’s 
puffs. I don’t see how one gentleman can so mis- 
understand another, and I account for it only because 
one of us is in politics and the other isn’t. I confess 
that the ojher doesn’t want to be.” 

“ I beg your pardon,” said Tom Baker, earnestly ; 
“ if I had stopped to think a moment I should have 
known better. To be honest with you, I am some- 
times led into actions I don’t like,” he added after a 
pause. “ But if I lose,* myself, I at least help the 
cause a little by preventing some things that are worse. 
You wonder how Mute Herring and I can have any- 
thing in common. W ell, in a general way I represent 
in the councils of the managers of the party those who 
regard the dignity of the office, just as he represents 
those who regard the spoils. I am not strong enough to 
control the party, and I often have to make compro- 
mises from which I shrink. But I prevent his get- 
ting complete control, and modify considerable action 
that if carried out as proposed would be scandalous. 
It isn’t a pleasant position to hold, and I wish circum- 
stances had not pushed me into it. I have always 
known that it led to my being frequetly misunder- 
stood, but I had not reflected before that I was lower- 
ing my own appreciation of manhood. I am thank- 


NEWSPAPER MENTION. 


37 


ful for your rebuke, Hume, and I will study the 
matter mpre closely. Perhaps I ought to get out of 
it ; yet surely things could be worse than they are ; ” 
and Mr. Baker sighed. 

“I can’t presume to advise you in that matter,” 
said Roderick ; “ the single experience I have had 
merely convinces me that public sentiment will have 
to be pretty thoroughly re-organized before a few 
well-meaning men can compete with the party ma- 
chine. But it was a little absurd that you should 
think that I objected only to the cost of puffing. 
Why, I detest the entire modern mania for newspaper 
mention. What journal can you pick up which does 
not say : ‘ Mr. Smith, of Jonesville, called at our 
office yesterday.’ Why did Mr. Smith, of Jonesville, 
call ? To get his name in the paper. Why did the 
editor put it in ? Because he knew Mr. Smith would 
buy ten extra copies, and mark them to send to his 
friends. Whenever a man’s name is constantly ap- 
pearing in connection with trivial statements, I set 
him down as an incorrigible ass. How then can any 
one insult me more than by smearing me over in the 
public press with sentences copied from patent medi- 
cine advertisements? I offered to pay Yarney his 
regular puffing price, but on condition that he never 
mentioned me except to catalogue my name in his list 
of candidates. He flew into a passion, and rushed off 
to print this without any pay at all. And, by the 
way, I shall still call on him for that three dollars and 
a half of change.” 

‘‘ So Yarney played his old trick on you, did he ? ” 
said Mr. Baker, laughing. “ He never has any change, 

Conimissioner Hume, C. 


38 


PIG-HEADED PRINCIPLES. 


and he always takes the bill. Then when you try to 
trade out the balance, you find before you get through 
that he has another bill against you. He looks and 
talks like a babbling simpleton, but in his own way 
he has a keen eye to business. Did he tell you how 
he came to own his ofiice materials ? Ho ? Then you 
must have made the discussion pretty lively for him, 
for he usually blurts it out at the first interview. 

“You see Dick Shepley, our big canal contractor, 
had a mortgage for twelve hundred dollars on the 
whole thing — quite all it was worth. He had held the 
reins pretty tight over Yarney and kept him out of 
several fat jobs. So when the Legislature talked about 
investigating Shepley, Yarney came to him and 
said confidentially, ‘ How Shepley, of course I am 
going to stand by you in this thing, but if it leaks out 
that your mortgage covers the whole office, everybody 
will say I support you because Vve got to. Don’t you 
think you had better hand the mortgage over to me, 
for the present V Shepley was scared, just then, and 
gave up the mortgage. Before night, Yarney had 
transferred the property to his wife.” 

“ And this is the man who imperils my election by 
not finding me a congenial companion,’" said Eoder- 
ick, scornfully. 

“Ho, it isn’t Yarney personally. Hobody cares 
anything about him or what he thinks, as an indi- 
vidual. But when he puts a thing in print, it isn’t 
any longer what Yarney thinks but what The Press 
thinks. For the republicans of this district Yarney 
is The Press. He knows this and counts on it, or he 
never would have imperilled a possible dollar by 


INFLUENCE OF THE PKE8S. 


39 


•quarrelling with you. You may be willing that he 
.should print editorials like this, but the party mana- 
gers can not stand it. We shall have to go to him, as 
he knew we should have to, and get him to publish a 
card saying that he was wholly misled as to your 
antecedents, character and deserts : for all of which 
-he will charge six dollars a column, instead of three.” 
“ But, my dear sir,” — Roderick began to protest. 
“But, my dear fellow,” Tom Baker interrupted, 
you must put yourself into our hands. I give you 
my word that I will shield you as far as I can, but as 
'Our candidate you must win. Don’t try to play Don 
Roderick against the modern political wind-mill. 
You shall take office with the cleanest hands of any 
man in the county.” 

“ I will try and follow your advice,” said Roderick; 
but tell me one thing : why is this not a promising 
field for a new newspaper, ably edited and honestly 
•conducted? Surley it would command the support 
-of all decent citizens, and sweep out this miserable 
Yox^ and its congenial contemporary.” 

“ It is a promising field,” said Mr. Baker. “ Ko 
village of its size in the State is more disgracefully mis- 
represented by its weekly papers. We have brought 
two or three good men here to run the Intellingencer^ 
in opposition to Yarney. Connelly was the first one — 
an able writer, but with no tact to compete with 
Yarney for advertising, and especially for public jobs. 
When he became bankrupt, a chap named Skeene 
Bought him out. He was a fair business-man and 
^ould have had the whole field to-day if he had not 
become suddenly intoxicated.” 


40 


PIG-HEADED PRINCIPLES. 


“ Tremens ? ” inquired Roderick. 

“ No, not with liquor but with punning. It seems^ 
some brainless paper printed this question asked at a 
bookstore. 

“ ‘ Have you Dcmte^s Inferno translated hy Gustave 
Dore ? ’ 

“The Madagascar Sentinel copied the question, 
and answered it : ‘ No : but we have sundry other 

works on theology translated hy the attic door^ 

“ The Sandwich Island Times copied question and 
answer, adding : 

“ ‘ Then your father’s strap should have made you 
Dantes like inferno on the granary floor,'' 

“The paragraph was now fairly started, and it 
grew, like a rolling ball of snow, by accretions of 
stupidity from every editor’s office through which it 
passed. 

“ It was half a column long, when it got to Skeene, 
and had taken a musical turn. In fact it had become 
so outrageously bad that it attracted him, and lie re- 
solved to add something himself. So he sat up all 
night, and at five in the morning had elaborated the 
following ; 

“‘We like quick music. The an Dante'' s inferno 
cuss f have f aDore^ 

“He left the paragraph with this tail to it on the 
compositor’s desk, and went home to sleep till noon. 
That afternoon he issued his paper and awaited the 
returns. 

“ It was astonishing how that tail took. The whole 
tribe of paragraphers at once recognized a congenial 
soul, and welcomed him with open arms. Every 


AN editor’s fall. 


41 


‘exchange referred to ‘ the bright and gifted Skeene 
of the Norway Intelligencer^ or ‘ our genial and witty 
-contemporary,’ or ‘ the brilliant genius of the richly- 
endowed Skeene, whose mental corruscations flash 
like diamond-rays from the teeming pages of the 
Intellingencer^ 

“ Of course that ruined him. He forgot politics, 
religion and common-sense, and spent all his time in 
rambling after words of double or treble meaning. 
Every local event was treated in the same way. When 
my fourth child Mabel was born he referred to it thus : 

‘‘ ‘ We are informed that a quartern loaf of a new 
pattern was received last night at the Bakery on 
Hawley street. It will be copyrighted in a few days, 
under a female trade-mark.’ 

“ Of course this sort of a thing wasn’t to be en- 
dured, but he went on from bad to worse till every 
man dreaded to take home his Thursday’s paper. 
Finally he was asked to name a price at which he 
would sell out his establishment and leave the place. 
The amount was raised by subscription, and the office 
sold, at a considerable loss, to the present editor.” 

“ What became of Skeene? ” 

‘‘ O he dropped lower and lower, till it made his 
companions shudder to see the sickly smile with which 
he opened his mouth. All rational methods of thought 
became impossible to him, the few dribbling ideas he 
had retained melted away, and his mind grew accus- 
tomed to regard words only for their sound, as a 
child chooses alphabet blocks only by their colors. It 
was a relief to us all when we learned that he had at 
last found refuge in a suitable asylum.” 


42 


PIG-HEADED PKINCIPLES. 


“ At Utica or Bloomingdale ? ” 

“ No ; as editor of the Mentionettes column of the- 
New York Herald^ at a salary of ten thousand dollars^ 
a year.” 

* * * * * * * 

But Koderick did not prosper as a candidate. He- 
was urged to make speeches or write newspaper 
articles. He declined on the ground that he had' 
nothing to say. Surley he could lift his voice for- 
the grand principles of the Kepublican party ? No,, 
he didn’t think he could. The party had done some- 
noble things, but the noblest thing it was doing just 
now was to keep out the Democrats, because they 
seemed on the whole even more greedy for spoils.. 
Well, he could speak for education, couldn’t he? Not 
effectively, he thought. Nobody wanted to waste his- 
time in listening to general principles, and he was not 
at present well enough informed as to the actual work- 
ing of our present school system in the country 
districts to be able to sustain a fair examination, not 
to say to instruct others. Well, impatiently, couldn’t 
he at least show his face, and let the people see that 
there was stuff enough in him to make a good com- 
missioner ? No, he didn’t think he had any personal 
characteristics of form or feature that would make- 
him an interesting object of public contemplation.. 
If he had horns, like Moses, or were eight feet high* 
like Barnum’s giant, or could pierce the beholder with 
his eagle eye, like the heroes of modern novels, he- 
should be willing to exhibit himself; but he really 
didn’t find anything in the mirror which paid him for 
staring much, and he had never felt like inviting; 


THE LAST RESORT. 


43 


other folks to stare at him. As to leaving his school 
and travelling around the country like an itinerant 
showman, that he couldn’t do. He might or might 
not be commisioner, but he absolutely was principal 
of the Norway high-school, and he proposed to attend 
to his present duties until others were thrust upon 
him. 

In despair his party made a final effort. A few 
days before the election, Tom Baker called on him 
with a serious brow. 

“ Hume,” said he, “ what do you suppose we 
nominated you for ? ” 

“ To beat Professor Cobb in caucus,” replied 
Hoderick promptly. 

“ Yes, but we expected you to get yourself elected.” 

“ I didn’t agree to.” 

“ But if you had been reasonable, you would have 
had a walk-over. As it is, that miserable little stick 
of a Democratic candidate expects 500 majority ; and 
I’m afraid he’ll get it.” 

“ Well, I hope he’ll make a good commissioner.” 

“ Yes, but what are you going to do, if you are 
defeated ? ” 

‘‘ Why, teach school, to be sure.” 

‘‘ Well, Hume, its my duty to tell you that if you 
are defeated you won’t teach this school.” 

“ What do you mean ? ” asked Koderick turning 
pale. 

‘‘ I don’t defend the action of the board,” said Mr. 
Baker, nervously ; “ it was Mr. Coy’s suggestion. But 
you know they are all Kepublicans, and they feel that 
you are not treating the party fairly. It seemed to 


44 


PIG-HEADED PKINCIPLES. 


them that if you no longer had this position to fall 
back upon, you would take more interest in the 
canvass.” 

So they dismissed me ? ” said Roderick, hoarsely. 

“ So they last night elected another principal to 
take your place on January first.” 

Tom Baker was ashamed of his errand, but he had 
not expected to see tlie philosophical, good-natured 
Roderick Hume so thoroughly roused. His eyes 
fiashed, and he steadied himself by the back of a chair 
with some effort. After a pause, he spoke with a 
low, intense, hard voice. 

“ Let me be certain that I understand this whole 
matter aright,” he said. “ At the time of your caucus, 
you needed an available man to defeat Professor Cobb. 
You saw no one else but me. You came to me and 
asked me to run. I refused because I preferred my 
present position. You urged me, and persisted in 
forcing the nomination upon me, to my personal, 
professional and pecuniary loss. Immediately de- 
mands began to be made upon me. Mute Herring 
wanted a subscription for campaign expenses, and 
told me my share toward the paying for the printing 
of ballots and sending carriages for the aged and infirm 
voters would be a hundred dollars. I didn’t believe 
it, but I paid him. Then came this controversy about 
puffing, and I was obliged to see my name disgraced 
by cards and paragraphs printed all over the county, 
which every reader supposed I wrote or paid for. 
Finally, because I refuse to yield to demands upon 
me which I believe to be unjust and unwise, the party 
whip is cracked over me through a party board of 


AN APPEAL TO VOTERS. 


45 


education ; and my school, for which I care more 
than for all the commissionerships in the State, is 
voted away from me to a man whose very name I do 
not know. 

“ Have I stated the facts correctly ? ” 

“ Yes, Hume, you have, and, by Jove, I am ashamed 
of the whole thins^.” 

“Yery good. How go back and tell your party 
associates that their last scheme is successful. They 
have made it a question of bread-and-butter, and of 
course even my manhood must yield to that. The 
letters from politicians shall be answered ; my posi- 
tion on public questions shall be defined ; I will make 
a stirring appeal to the voters of the district. The 
Vox comes out first, this very afternoon. Hurry over 
to the oflice and save me a column and a half. I will 
send them the copy before noon.” 

“ I am sorry to seem to force you to this action, 
but it is certainly the wisest you can take,” said Tom 
as he rather awkwardly withdrew. 

The article was sent over in time, was hurriedly set 
up, and was printed at once in the afternoon Vox, It 
read as follows : 

ONE CANDIDATE’S VIEWS. 

To the Voters of the Second Commissioner District: 

In the brief card in which I accepted the nomination which 
the Republican caucus did me the honor to confer, I stated that 
though necessarily ignorant of the practical working of the 
office of schoor commissioner, I had a high regard for its im- 
portance in our system of public instruction, and should, if 
elected, strive to make myself thoroughly acquainted with my 
duties, and to discharge them faithfully. It seemed to me then, 
it seems to me now, that this is about all an inexperienced man 
can safely and honestly say. But I find myself blamed for not 


46 


PIG-HEADED PKINCIPLES. 


defining my position on various special topics; and as most of 
these are alluded to in letters which have been addressed to me, 
and which I have not yet taken occasion to answer, I embrace 
this opportuiiity at once to print the characteristic specimens of 
a rather curious correspondence, and to answer them publicly^ 
that other correspondents and the community generally may 
judge something of the attiude I take. 

First Letter. 

Ettleville, Oct.' 22, 1875. 

R. Hume, Esq., 

Norway, N. Y., 

Dear Sir:— We have made some inquiries since the caucus which 
satisfy us that you are likely to make an able and judicious commis- 
sioner, and we propose to transfer to you the votes of our three hundred 
operatives, although many of the later are of strong Democratic proclivi- 
ties. We shall excuse ourselves for thus participating in the canvass,, 
because we are deeply interested in the cause of education, and desire 
that the children of our workmen, in particular, shall have every oppor- 
tunity for improvement. 

We write you at this time in order to prevent any prejudicing of your 
mind in regard to a disputed boundry between two neighboring districts 
here. The records have long been lost, but we have ample witnesses to 
prove that the boundary runs about four rods south of our mill property, 
leaving us in district No. 10. From the fact that there are several times 
as many children in No. 9, as in No. 10, thus rendering two schools nec- 
cessary, strong eifort has been made on the part of niggardly tax-payers 
in that district to run the district boundary some thirty rods north, to the 
road, thus including our property in No. 9. This dispute led to a pro- 
tracted law-suit some years ago, in the midst of which the district was 
non-suited, because failing to raise the necessary amount for legal ex- 
penses. It has appealed several times to the present school commis- 
sioner, a very practical common-sense man, and he has invariably 
declined to interfere, on the ground that quarrelling between adjoining, 
districts disturbs the peace and makes satisfactory teaching impossible. 

We do not doubt that you will take this view, and write you thus early 
in regard to the matter, that you may have ample time to reply before 
election. 

Wishing you a brisk canvass and a sweeping majority, we are 

Yours respectfully, 

Ettle, Ettle, & Co. 

Answer . — Without knowing the facts of theMjase, except as 
here indicated, I have no doubt that the. boundary-line runs 
through the road, and that Ettle, Ettle & Co. have for years sad- 
dled upon their workmen the school-tax which they should have 
paid themselves. If elected, I guarantee to give this matter my 
immediate and earnest attention. 


AN APPEAL TO VOTERS. 


4T 


Second Letter. 

Dear Nur;— Hugginsville Nov twenty second Ime gladd to no you are 
nominated fort^ie scool commishner is a exceedenly important offisthe 
only thing is this folks sayou no 2 much and that you wont lisence nobody 
. except on a hard examinashun non larnin ant every thing and to carry 
out your ideer wood take oiE sura of our best teechers fur instins thars my 
darter Jane she has tort a good scool fer 17 yeers wood j'ou examin hur 
or wood you sa here Jane experiens like yoors with good reckomens is 
better than grade larnin an renue hur stifkit makin many harts glad this 
is a test kweschun fer i am supervisor of this town an have bin 4 yeers 
pleese anser fur me an my nabors wants to no yoor humble servant Joel 
White 

Amwer . — If Miss Jane White has taught a good school for 
seventeen years, she has personally made great progress in every 
branch of a common-school education; for only by the momen- 
tum of • her own self-improvement can a teacher interest her 
pupils in making the most of themselves. When Miss White 
presents herself for a certificate, I shall therefore examine her to 
the fullest extent in every branch established by the Code, 
including universal history and the use of school apparatus. A 
teacher of seventeen years’ experience can be a candidate only' 
for a first grade certificate, and failing to pass a creditable exam- 
ination for that should drop out of a profession in which she 
herself violates the very rule of ambition and energy which she 
prescribes for her scholars. 

Third Letter. 

Constantinople, Macedonia Co., N. Y. ? 

November 24, 1875. J 

Roderick Hume, 

Principal of High School, 

Norway, Macedonia Co. N. Y. 

5ir.’— Pardon the liberty taken by a stranger in thus addressing you to- 
learn before the coming election your views upon one of the most 
serious questions connected with our common-school polity— I refer to 
the reading of the Bible at the opening exercises of the public schools.. 

Without presuming to influence in any way a fixed opinion which I 
doubt not you have already formed, I take the liberty of sending you 
herwith a sermon upon this subject, prepared by the writer for the 
Sabbath proceeding our last National holiday, and printed by request. 
It is now in its third edition. 

Trusting heartily to co-operate with you in every effort for the ad- 
vancement of an education which shall be national, universal and Chris- 
tian, I am Yours respectfully, 

Ollapod Gulliver, 
Pastor Presbyterian Church. 


48 


PIG-HEADED PRINCIPLES. 


Answer,— \ have read with great interest the Rev. Mr. Gulliver’s 
ingenious and interesting sermon. I do not doubt that he states 
correctly the number of books and chapters and verses and words 
and letters in the Holy Book, and which are the middle one and 
the longest one and the shortest one, and which one contains all 
the letters of the alphabet. He will permit me to suggest, how- 
ever, that the question he asks me is not one of statistics or of 
literature or of sentiment or even of religion. New York hap- 
pens to be the one State in which, by repeated and uniform descis- 
ions of the highest legal authority, it has been for many years 
established that religious exercises can not be insisted upon 
during school hours, or on the part of any children who do not 
willingly participate. 

* Fourth Letter. 

Chimborazo, N. Y., Nov. 25, 1S75. 

Dear Mr. Hume: 

What is your position with regard to Corporal Punishment ? I warn 
you that we ladies are going to make our influence felt for once, and urge 
our husbands and fathers and brothers to vote for the candidate who be- 
lieves in ruling by love. We give you the first opportunity to gather our 
hearts at your feet, and we promise to plead for you with pretty looks and 
pretty speeches, or with tears and terrors and tongs, if need be, provided 
you will announce yourself, as I am sure you are, in favor of the abolition 
of physical punishment. 

As president of the largest organization of our sex in this county: 
The Macedonia County Female Association for the Instruction of Mothers 
in their Duties towards the Rising Generation, an association founded on 
the principles of Frmbel, but which has developed those principles further 
and modified them according to the peculiar genius of our American in- 
stitutions— as president of this organization, I say, which numbers mem- 
bers in every school district, I make no idle boast when I say that your 
success or defeat at tlie polls will depend upon your acceptance or rejectim 
of these overtures. Most sincerely yours, 

(Miss) Lydia Littleton. 

P. 3.— I trust that an early reply will relieve us from the disagreeable 
necessity of offering our support to the other candidate. L. L. 

Answer . — Ever since I was first led to give any reflection to 
the subject, it has been a standing wonder to me that the advo- 
■cates of Woman Suffrage have not preceded their efforts by a 
preliminary education of their sex never to write letters or make 
speeches like the proceeding. There is forthcoming an election 
to the most responsible office in our school system. The qualifi- 
cations required of the candidate are almost innumerable. He 


AN APPEAL TO VOTERS. 


4 <>‘ 

must have education, or he cannot judge of the education of 
others. He must have integrity, judgment, tact, or he can not 
decide as to the success of teachers, or adjust the neighborhood 
quarrels about boundaries, or advise as to the continual mis- 
understandings about the hiring and dismissing of teachers, the- 
relative rights of parents and children and trustees, and all the 
details of school economy and management. Above all, he must 
have an unimpeachable moral character, and must be in himself 
a model of sturdy, earnest manhood, alike to teachers and to the^ 
pupils among whom he is. constantly travelling. 

Men look at the commissionership in this broad light, and, 
however untrue they may be to their convictions, they know in 
their hearts that a man who lacks any of these characteristics is 
unfit for the office. 

But woman, lovely woman, is seized with an impulse of sen- 
timentality, and resolves that there shall be no more ferules in* 
school. With her mind on that, she sees nothing else. I may 
have all the characteristics demanded by the office, or I may 
have none of them: that is nothing to her. But if I agree with 
her in her one impulse, the dear creature will lay her heart at my 
feet, and fight for me with pretty face and pretty speeches: yea, 
with tears and terrors and tongs. 

Miss Littleton, it grieves me to decline this kind of support,, 
but you must excuse me. I like to sec a teacher strong enough 
to control his school without resorting to the rod, but I want to 
see him control the school, anyway. The final resort on which 
obedience is demanded and yielded must be either a whipping or 
expulsion. I think it better for the boy and belter for the school 
that he should get the whipping, and a sound one. 

I knew the president of a school-board looking for a new 
principal, who objected strenuously to one application. 

“ Why, he sends lots of recommendations,” interposed a new 
member. 

“ Yes, but they say too d— d much about his Christian piety, 
and too little about his muscle,” said the president. 

He was a rude and profane man, Miss Littleton: but he had' 
had experience. 

Trusting that these four replies to these four letters sufficient- 


50 


PIG-HEADED PEINCIPLES. 


ly indicate my views and intentions, I cast myself, fellow citizens, 
upon your suffrages. Roderick Hume. 

******* 

Tom Baker, Mute Herring and Squire Coy met on 
the street. 

“ Have you seen it ? ” asked Tom. 

‘‘Yes,” groaned the Squire; “of course that set- 
tles it.” 

“ I have been through this kind of thing before,” 
growled Mute Herring, viciously, “ and sometime the 
boys will begin to believe what I say. Piety is bad 
-enough, but a man with pig-headed principles has no 
business in politics.” 


CHAPTEK lY. 


A PLIANT CANDIDATE. 

Marcus Antonins Tippit was the sole offspring of 
Theodore Person Tippit, A. M., M. D., deceased. 
Dr. Tippit had considerable professional skill, but no 
professional sagacity. He cured his wealthy patients 
as soon as he could, and attended the poor as long as 
they needed him. Consequently he left behind him 
hardly anything except his widow, his boy ten years 
old, and a reputation for being eccentric. 

The widow Tippit was so hard of feature and so 
awkward of motion that she never dared to show how 
tender-hearted she was. Her parents did little for 
her except to name her, and the name they gave her 
was Tapioca. So Tapioca Blin, a penniless orphan 
before she was six years old, without a friend or a per- 
sonal attraction, found her early path in life exceed- 
ingly rugged. But there was some quiet persistence 
about her, and when Theodore Tippit was a senior 
at Williams, she was a teacher in the village school, 
and occasionally met him at social gatherings. 

When the class graduated, Tippit was on top, and 
‘ he delivered the valedictory. For a wonder, he said 
something in it. Instead of dilating upon The 
Classical Ideal of National Supremacy, as Displayed in 
the Pages of Koman History, his subject was The 
( 51 ) 


52 


A PLIANT CANDIDATE. 


Tyranny of Possession. After showing how the 
healthy have no patience with illness, the rich with 
poverty, the educated with ignorance, the quickwitted 
with dulness, he dwelt mainly on social standards 
and prejudices. His brief personal remarks to the 
class were in the same strain, and he closed as follov/s: 

“The present age is castin^g off general superstitions. One 
by one the victims of national persecution are rescued, till now 
slavery alone remains, and its days are numbered. The aggre- 
gate of injuries which insults to a class of men accumulate is an 
outrage upon justice too palpable to be endured. 

“But the spirit of intolerance remains. We despise our fellow 
men, neglect and insult them. We judge hastily, we condemn 
harshly. We set up artificial standards, and pass by all who fall 
below. Fredrika Bremer writes in her autobiography ; ‘ I loved 
my mother tenderly and passionately, and longed above every- 
thing else in the world to please her. I failed herein completely. 
I walked badly, sat badly, courtesied badly ; and many bitter 
moments this cost me, because my mother wished her daughters 
to be perfect, as the heroines of romance are perfect.’ She goes 
on to relate the plans she formed to put out her eyes, and shorten 
her life; all because her mother had no kind word for a daughter 
who failed to make a graceful bow. 

“ We pass such judgments constantly. Some peculiarity in 
feature, habit, or expression inspires a prejudice to which we 
cling in pride of our discernment. Instead of overlooking or 
seeking to correct the faults of others, we suffer them to shadow 
the whole character, and cast their color on every action. 

“It is not altogether true that man finds the world as he 
takes it. Not always does one meet in his intercourse with 
others a mirror which reflects his own feelings. Many a man 
has mingled with his fellows, his heart gushing with love and 
sympathy, and ready to see in every man a brother ; who in con- 
sequence of some unpleasant habit which courteous treatment 
would have dispelled, has been slighted, sneered at, driven to 
seclusion and misanthropy. 

“ There is something sad in this crushing of generous impulse. 
Its freshness, its vigor, its capacity for good can never be re- 


AN ECHO FROM COMMENCEMENT. 53 

Stored. As he is the closest miser who has once been a spend- 
thrift, so he may feel the bitterest hatred of mankind who was 
once oily too full of love and confidence. 

“ With such men we mingle every day. Their destiny is to 
be shaped by our charity or by our intolerance. Let us remem- 
ber this, and echo in our actions the sentiment of Whittier: 

“ ‘ Cast not the clouded gem away ; 

Quench not the dim but living ray— 

My brother man, beware ! 

With that deep voice which from the skies 
Forbade the patriarch’s sacrifice, 

God’s angel cries, ‘ Forbear. ’ ” 

Tippit meant what he said. It reflected something 
of his own experience. He spoke with feeling, and 
as he walked down the centre aisle, the church shook 
with applause. 

Just before he reached the door, his glance fell on 
Tappy Blin. She sat bolt upright, her features more 
rigid than ever in the effort to betray no feeling. But 
in one eye a big round tear had gathered itself and 
was ready to drop, while from the other a shining- 
track lead down her cheek to where the tear had fallen 
and spotted her cheap merino dress. 

Tippit received considerable attention that day, but 
nothing crowded out of his mind that face and those 
tears. At the President’s, in the evening, he saw 
Tappy sitting in a corner, forlorn and wistful. He 
went up to her at once, and spoke with his usual 
blunt directness. 

‘‘ Miss Blin,” he said, “ I had one listener to-day 
who sympathized with me.” 

Poor, bashful young woman ! She could only 
blush and stammer. She could not even repress or 
conceal the big gulp in her throat. But he did not 
seem to mind it, for he went right on to say, still 

CommiseioDer Hame, D. 


54 


A PLIANT CANDIDATE. 


standing before her, and with half a dozen people 
within hearing distance : 

“I am going away from here on Saturday. On 
Friday evening I want to call on you for an answer to 
this question ; ‘Will you be my wife ? ’ ” 

She had a true woman’s instinct, this big, shy, awk- 
ward girl ; and it flashed over her as a revelation that 
the hero of the day and of her heart really loved her 
— her, Tapioca Blin ! It was merciful in him to leave 
her without seeking an answer or even a glance. She 
was overwhelmed, and when she had Anally managed 
to withdraw, and found herself alone in her little attic 
room, she felt no exultation, but only thankfulness as 
humble as it was profound. 

She made him a good wife, and a happy one. She 
could never have shone in society, but Dr. Tippit did 
not care for that. He looked upon home as a nest 
built for three, which only he needed to leave. So 
little Tony had no teacher, no playmate, but his 
mother. When he was made fatherless, he had never 
.so much as heard a harsh word. 

At the funeral, people said that Mrs. Tippit showed 
very little feeling. She would not even take a last 
look at the remains under the eyes of the promiscu- 
ous crowd present, after the touching custom which 
undertakers have handed down to us. More than one 
wife in Jerico remarked, with a pursing of the lips, 
that if she lost her husband she would at least pretend 
to be sorry for it ; and ended in a dreamy tone, as she 
thought how becomingly the heavy, lustreless crape 
would contrast with her own fair complexion. 

Whatever paroxysms of grief Tappy Tippit may 


TONY TIPPIT. 


55 


liave indulged, she indulged in solitude. When she 
was with her boy, her one thought was : ‘‘ How 

would He have wanted his son to be trained ? ” 

The estate brought little more than enough for the 
funeral, the cemetery lot, and an unlettered but 
massive granite slab. The widow Tippit, as she 
was thenceforth called, secured the village school, 
and for years taught the other children by day and 
ber own boy by night, till she had given him no 
meagre or shallow education. Gradually he began to 
assist her in school, and sometimes to take her place 
for a day or two, when she was ill. It was a proud 
day for both of them when the trustee said : 

“ Tony, you are man-grown, and the boys like you. 
Suppose I make the contract with you, instead of 
jour mother ? ’’ 

After that, he never permitted her to share in their 
support, but every day grew more and more like his 
father in tender thoughtfulness for her comfort. 

He was not brilliant, or forcible, or even firm. But 
he had no bad habits, he was faithful to every duty, 
and he loved his mother. He succeeded pretty well 
in school. His sorest troubles grew out of the disci- 
pline, but he treated his boys honestly, and the best of 
them always stood by him. Besides, he was not with- 
out shrewd common-sense. He even spent a year at 
-a normal school and came back without getting wis- 
dom insured, for fear it would die with him. He was 
•engaged to a bright young teacher in an adjoining dis- 
trict, and was to be married next Christmas, at which 
time he would have seven hundred dollars saved and 
cshe three hundred, so that they could start in life a 


56 


A PLIANT CANDIDATE. 


thousand dollars to the fore. In fact, the world used 
Tony Tippit kindly. Everybody liked him, and the- 
convention applauded heartily when he was given the- 
honorary nomination as Democratic candidate for 
school commissioner. He spent a merry evening with 
his mother and Lucy in preparing a letter of accept- 
ance, and when it was published in three of the county 
papers, and signed in full caps, MAKCUS A. TIPPIT,. 
three persons laughed over it as a joke when together,, 
but surreptitiously cut it out and pasted it away a&^ 
soon as they were alone. 

The next day after Koderick Hume’s letter appeared 
in the VoXf a stranger called upon Tony at his school.. 
Had Tony been better acquainted with the world, 
he would have seen that the stranger was too labori- 
ously dressed for a gentleman, that his long mustache- 
was waxed at the ends, and that his eyes had a schem- 
ing, pitiless glance. 

“ Mr. Tippit, I believe,” he said, graciously but im- 
pressively, as Tony opened the door. “ Can I see you 
for a few moments in private ? ” 

Tony led him into the little ante-room, and gave^ 
him a chair. 

“ You are the Democratic candidate for school com- 
missioner ? ” 

“ Yes, sir.” 

‘‘ Do you want to be elected ? ” 

“ Of course I should like to be, but a Democrat 
stands no chance in this county.” 

“ How much would the election be worth to you,, 
supposing it could be secured by perfectly fair 
means ? ” 


A PROFESSIONAL POLITICIAN. 57 

Tony grew interested. This man seemed to know 
what he was talking about. 

“I — I don’t know,” he replied. 

“ What salary do you get here ? ” 

“ Six hundred dollars.” 

“Very well. You would then get four hundred 
’dollars a year extra, — twelve hundred dollars for the 
•first term, and as much for the second :*you know we 
always re-elect in this district. That makes twenty- 
four hundred dollars clear profit.” 

It had never seemed so large to Tony before. He 
really wished he could get it. 

“ Besides,” the stranger went on, it is doubtful 
whether you can keep your place if this Hume is 
elected. See what he writes to J oel White. He told 
.a man the other day he would give no license for 
village schools except to college graduates — the miser- 
able, conceited jack-a-napes. He ought to be beaten, 
just to take down his impudence.” 

Tony thought so too, and remembered with appre- 
liension that his last certificate had nearly expired. 

‘‘ How, you think you can’t be elected. I tell you 
that you can be, and that if you put yourself into my 
hands you shall be. Politics is a [business. Heither 
you nor Hume know anything about it, but there is 
this difference, that he is too stupidly conceited to 
learn, while you, if I am correctly informed by those 
who know you, are ready to listen to reason.” 

Tony hoped that he was open to conviction. 

“Well, Mr. Tippit, I can’t prove to you what I 
think about this matter, any better than by showing 
jou what I am ready to risk. You will admit I sup- 


58 


A PLIANT CANDIDATE. 


pose that my time and experience are worth some- 
thing. Yery well. I will devote myself entirely to 
your canvass from this hour to election, giving you all 
my time, night and day ; for it’s brisk work now. If 
you are elected, you shall pay me three hundred dol- 
lars. If you fail, you shall pay me nothing. That 
shows how I estimate your chances.” 

This certainly seemed fair, and Tony would consult: 
his — his friends about it, and decide at once. 

“ But that won’t do. Why, man, 'don’t you know 
that the election is next Tuesday ? In the mean time,, 
you must visit every village in the district, besides 
drumming up every voter in Norway. Why, my 
dear fellow, do you suppose people are going to cast 
their ballots for you just because you are nominated ? 
No, sir. They must see you, knbw you, like you, and 
not only vote for you themselves, but make their 
neighbors do so, too. The printed name ‘ Marcus A. 
Tippit’ looks no better on a ballot than ‘Koderick 
Hume,’ and how is it to be anything more than a 
name unless they know Tony Tippit himself ? ” 

This sounded reasonable, certainly, Tony admitted.. 

“ Just here is where that man Hume makes a mis- 
take. He is a cold, stuck-up-fellow that nobody likes, 
and he thinks people are going to vote for him because 
he.graduated at a college. Now everybody that knows 
you likes you. They tell me this village will vote for 
you solid. All you want then is to have more folks 
know you, and to do that you must go where they are, 
and show that you value their support enough to ask 
for it. Don’t you see ? ” 


THE CAMPAIGN OPENED. 


59 


Tony saw, and asked the stranger what he' would 
like to have him do. 

“ In the first place, as a matter of business, I want 
you to sign this paper, guaranteeing me three hun- 
dred dollars in case you are elected. That secures my 
services. Then I want you to close your school to- 
night, or put someone else in till election, and meet 
me at the American Hotel in Horway, this evening, 
prepared to begin work.” 

The stranger’s enthusiasm was contagious. Tony 
signed the paper, and agreed to corne. He noticed 
that the paper made the stranger his agent for the 
rest of the campaign, and rather wondered what that 
meant. 

* * * * * * * 

When Tony Tippit reached the American Hotel, he 
felt uncomfortable. Though his mother had said 
nothing after she learned that he had signed the con- 
tract, he felt sure that she did not approve of it. He 
refiected that he had been too hasty, and he felt the 
impatient annoyance of one who has allowed himself 
to be outwitted. 

But Billy Kudolph, his new political guardian, met 
him cordially, introduced him to half a dozen men 
whose names he had seen in newspaper reports of 
caucuses and conventions, and presently invited the 
whole party to supper. 

The supper was a revelation to Tony. He knew 
food only as a necessity to existence, that cost money, 
and tasted well if one was hungry. Of three or four 
successive courses, and especially of such appetizing 
spices and sauces, he had never dreamed. Once or 


60 


A PLIANT CANDIDATE. 


twice he caught himself actually smacking his lips, 
and long before the meal was done he felt a burning 
thirst which water did not allay. 

He had at first declined the wine, a smooth port 
which Kudolph had carefully selected, but he finally 
consented to taste it. How deliciously it cooled his 
dry tongue, and what a pleasant warmth it diffused 
under his waistcoat ! He drank another glass, and 
presently awoke to the fact that he was sustaining his 
part of the conversation with vivacity, and even with 
brilliancy. 

The discovery was as delightful as it was unex- 
pected. Tony was naturally slow of thought and 
awkward in expression. He knew it, and had there- 
fore been ill at ease among strangers. But there he 
was in a group of politicians, men whose names were 
in the paper almost every week, and yet so far from 
being awkward or bashful, he was telling his story and 
clinching his retort with the best of them. He 
seemed to be suddenly resolved into two men: an outer 
self sparkling with spontaneous wit, while a sort of 
inner self was whispering : • “ Take care, Tony ; go 
slow, Tony ; the first you know they’ll find out that 
you’re drunk.” 

But he wasn’t drunk. Budolph was watching him, 
and carried him off just when the exhilaration was at 
its height, and just after the politicians had drained a 
health to the coming commissioner, to which Tony 
had made a response decidedly creditable. In fact 
Tony would gladly have staid longer, and pleaded that 
he was too excited to rest. But Eudolph understood 
this part of his business thoroughly. He had Tony 


STIMULATED BEILLIANCY. 


61 


asleep within half an hour, and in the morning he 
gave him two cups of strong coffee before he was 
fairly awake. He assured him that he had astonished 
everybody by his brilliancy the night before, and re- 
peated scores of good things Tony had said, some of 
which Tony remembered, and some of which, for the 
best of reasons, he didn’t. 

The wisest men pride themselves more upon the 
imagined possession of some little power they really 
lack, than upon all the great powers they really pos- 
sess. It was not strange, therefore, that Tony should 
exult in the newly-discovered ability to shine in 
conversation. He longed to get back to that half- 
unconscious state which is the acme of conscious- 
ness, and upon their visiting tour, next day, he drank 
freely even of unpalatable ale and lager, whenever, as 
Rudolph was constantly insisting, there was opportu- 
nity to win votes by treating the crowd. In fact he 
spent the whole week in a state that was almost tipsy ; 
End yet so skilfully did Rudolph manage him, feed- 
ing him well, driving him all over the district behind 
E team of fast horses, and getting him to bed in good 
season, that he never lost his self-respect, and even 
learned to agree with his tutor that liquor is as neces- 
sary to a vigorous mind as food to a healthy body. 

On the whole his campaign was well arranged and 
managed. He rather wondered that it was the saloon- 
keepers he had to visit, instead of the lawyers and 
doctors and ministers. But Rudolph explained that 
lawyers and doctors and ministers only controlled 
their individual votes, not having time or taste for 
politics ; while bar-tenders have little else to talk of 


62 


A PLIANT CANDIDATE. 


between drinks, and are always safe for fifty votes- 
apiece, and upward. 

Sunday he spent at home. It was a sad day for his 
mother. Full well she knew how to account for his 
restlessness, his unstrung nerves, his eager recital of 
his triumphs, his impatience for Monday and more of 
them. But she listened with a patient smile. She 
uttered no word of remonstrance or discouragement. 
She knew that he was in bad hands, and that he 
needed all his strength to get through the next two 
days without disgrace. So she encouraged him,, 
petted him, prayed for him. In the morning she 
sent him off with a light heart. But her own heart 
was heavy, heavy. 

Monday was devoted to clinching the voters of 
Norway. Tony was in high good humor, and after a. 
well-balanced dinner for a dozen, which Budolph had 
as usual ordered charged to himself, Tony said : 

“ See here, Billy, you are spending your money 
pretty freely for me. It’s time I paid my share.”' 
And in the innocence of his heart he pulled out a ten- 
dollar bill. 

Eudolph smiled contemptuously under his mus- 
tache, but said in a tone of hearty good fellowship : 

“ O that’s all right. I undertook to see you elected, 
and I propose to do it. But the thing is sure now,, 
and if you want to give me a hundred dollars on 
account, it will come in handy.” 

A hundred dollars ! That was a good deal of money 
to a man who had worked so hard as Tony to save it. 
But he couldn’t well refuse. Besides, his election 


TCO GOOD A PAYMASTER. 

was certain, and this hundred was only one of the 
three he would owe Billy Kudolph. 

So he went over to the savings bank and drew the 
money. Rudolph was so hungry for it, that he en- 
tered the bank with Tony, and stood looking on as the 
book was handed in. The cashier, a kind old gentle- 
man of long experience, looked at Rudolph suspi- 
ciously, and at Tony questioningly. 

“ This is the first money you have drawn,” he said 
to Tony. “ I hope you are going to use it for a good 
purpose ? ” 

“Yes, sir; to pay some of my bills for campaign 
expenses,” he said. But he felt uncomfortable again, 
and passed over tlie crisp twenty-dollar notes rather 
reluctantly. 

Billy Rudolph’s impulse was to clutch them, so 
eager was he for money, but he took them nonchal- 
antly, folded them up carelessly, laid them away in 
his vest-pocket like a toothpick, and sauntered down 
the street as though nothing had happened. As a 
matter of form, he handed Tony a receipt for one 
hundred dollars on account of services rendered, and 
induced Tony, as a matter of form, the thing being 
now certain, to give a note for the other two hundred 
and close the matter up. 

“ Excuse me one moment,” he exclaimed of a sud- 
den, assuming that a boy who had just passed had 
beckoned to him. He walked back to the boy, pre- 
tended to be engaged in earnest conference, and then 
came back to Tony in great distress. 

“ My sister is worse,” he said ; “ she has been ill 
all the week, and only my interest in you has kept 


-64 


A PLIANT CANDIDATE. 


me from her. But she has sent for me, and as there 
is really nothing more to be done, I think I shall 
have to go to her. Will you excuse me until to- 
morrow? You will find the fellows at Tommy’s.” 

Tony urged him to go at once to his sister, and 
■even offered to go with him. But this Billy would 
not permit, as it was desirable for Tony to keep him- 
self in sight and mind till election. 

“ But I do really hope you will find her better,” 
«aid Tony, wringing Rudolph’s hand, and with tears 
in his eyes. 

“ I hope so, too,” said Rudolph, manfully conceal- 
ing his agitation, and hurrying away. 

Tony looked after him for a moment, and then 
went on to Tommy’s. Had he looked longer after 
Rudolph, had he followed him, he would have seen 
him enter a low saloon, and pass through it, up a 
pair of back-stairs, to where several men were hand- 
ling cards. Had he remained, he would have seen 
Rudolph sit at a greasy table, lit by a smoky kero- 
sene lamp, and buckle down to another struggle with 
that tiger of whose claws and teeth he bore so many 
hidden scars. He would have seen him sit there hour 
^fter hour, now winning, now losing, but still intent, 
insatiable, imperturbable. About four o’clock in the 
morning he would have seen him rise from the table 
without a penny, and leaving behind him Tony’s 
Dote for the two hundred doll^a’s. Then he would 
have seen him retire with as much dignity as if he 
had been a winner, walk slowly to his own scantily- 
furnished room, lay away his clothes deliberately and 
exactly, throw open his bed, pause a moment with his 


tommy’s. 


65 ^ 


eye on a loaded revolver to think whether he was yet 
ready to blow his brains out, decide on the whole to 
wait awhile longer, go to bed, lie for awhile deter- 
mining where was the turning-point in his luck, and 
fall asleep cursing himself for not having stopped at 
that instant. 


But Tony knew nothing of this, for he had gone on 
to Tommy’s. Tommy’s was an institution. It was 
an excellent restaurant, a quiet drinking-place, a 
room of general resort for men who enjoy themselves 
best away from home! The cooking was the best to 
be had in the village, and business men, professional 
men, now and then a clergyman, might be seen there 
at dinner or supper time. The kitchen was kept opee 
till two or three o’clock, but towards midnight the or- 
ders for drinks were interspersed but seldom with de- 
mands for roast oysters or Welch rarebits. There 
was no boisterous drunkenness. If a customer became 
noisy, he was inveigled into a quiet room overhead, 
where he could sleep himself sober. Most of the 
citizens of Norway felt at liberty to drop in there at 
any hour. In fact Tommy’s was considered eminently 
respectable. 

About eleven o’clock, that night. Mute Herring- 
stopped in, on his way home. His work for the mor^ 
row was done — well done, he thought. The Republi- 
cans would elect evexj candidate except school com- 
missioner. He felt sore over that, but the fault wasn’t 
his, and the boys would learn a lesson that might be 
of value in making nominations for more important 
places. So Mute felt tolerably contented, and he* 


66 


A PLIANT CANDIDATE. 


treated himself to a glass of ale at Tommy’s, partly to 
congratulate himself, and partly to see if anything 
new was talked about there. It wasn’t a bad place to 
get hints of Democratic projects. 

As he entered, a party of half-a-dozen were making 
merry in a farther corner. One of them, a little fel- 
low with an inoffensive mustache, was seated on one 
end of the table and telling a story. 

“ The minute J ack Harkins came into the school- 
room,” he was saying, “ I knew that he meant busi- 
ness. He had cleaned out two or three teachers in the 
village he had moved from, and he was going for me. 
Well, I looked at him, and I saw that I was gone. He 
was not only bigger and stouter, every way, but he 
had the sort of an eye which shows something more 
than brute strength. 1 saw that my being older and 
a teacher didn’t weigh with him a bit. There was no 
shuffling, underhanded manner about him. He just 
looked me square in the eye as much as to say, ‘ I am 
bigger and stouter and smarter every way than you 
are, and you know it.’ The joke of it was, I did 
know it, and I was in a bad box. 

“Well, I got through the afternoon as well as I 
could, being careful not to see that he did anything 
out of the way, and when school closed I asked him 
to stay. A glance passed around among the boys, 
and he smiled in a self-satisfied way ; but he sat still. 

After the boys were gone, I walked down the aisle 
to his seat. I could see him brace himself as if he 
thought I was going to grab him ; but instead of that 
I sat down on the other side of the aisle, and spoke 
to him good-naturedly. 


A STORY OF SCHOOL DISCIPLINE. 67 

“‘Jack,’ I said, ‘you think you can lick me, don’t 
you ? ’ 

“ ‘ Yes, sir,’ he replied, ‘ I do.’ 

“ ‘Well, now, that’s a most remarkable coincidence,’ 
I said, ‘ for I think so, too.” 

“ He looked up surprised. 

“‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I haven’t the slightest doubt that 
you can absolutely maul me. I am small and you are 
big. Besides, I don’t know anything about fighting, 
and you have got your hand in by good deal of prac> 
tice, I take it ? ’ 

“ He said he had kerflummuxed around some. 

“ ‘ Well,’ I said, ‘you were intending to lay me out 
this afternoon, I suppose ? ’ 

“He looked a little shame-faced, as he acknowl- 
edged that he had developed a little plan of that sort. 

“ ‘ Well, Jack,’ I said, ‘ we both agree that you can 
do it, so suppose we call it done, which will save our 
clothes if not our feelings. Consider me thoroughly 
licked. How, what comes next?’ 

“ This was a new tack that he wasn’t prepared for. 

“ ‘ You’re a kind of a funny teacher,’ said he. 

“‘Hot particularly,’ I replied. ‘Some teachers 
might think their dignity required them to try and 
thresh you, like the darkey who said that if the Lord 
told him to butt through a stone- wall, he didn’t know 
whether he should butt through it, but he knew he 
should butt at it like de debil. But in his place I 
should have grave doubts whether it was the Lord 
that told me, and save my head till I was entirely 
certain. And in this case I don’t see why two 
persons man-grown, like you and me, should fight like 


68 


A PLIANT CANDIDATE. 


a couple of village dogs over a matter they can just 
as well settle by a sensible straight-forward talk.’ 

“ It flattered him to be treated on an equality like 
this, and he looked up with a good-natured smile. 

‘ I don’t believe I should want to lick you, any- 
way,’ ” he said. 

‘‘ ‘ I confess, I don’t see why you should,’ I replied. 
‘ I think this whole notion of fighting between teach- 
ers and scholars is rather a tradition than a feeling. 
In the old times, when school couldn’t begin till a 
cart-load of green withes was hauled up to the door, 
it may have been natural for the big boys to defend 
themselves. But I’m sure I am always ready to do 
three times as much for my boys as I ask them to do 
for me. I don’t believe, for instance, anybody could 
be more willing than I am to help you all I can this 
winter to make the most of your time and get all the 
profit you can out of school. But of course we 
have got to understand one another first, and I knew 
you were old enough and manly enough to talk this 
matter over and come to some decision as to how we 
are to treat each other.’ 

“The fellow stood up with tears in his eyes. 

“ ‘ Mr. Tippit,’ he said, ‘ I am a d d fool, and 

you are a gentleman. > If any boy in this school gives 
you trouble this winter. I’ll skin him alive.’ 

“ I never had so easy a term, but somehow or other 
it crept out what kind of a talk we had had, and that 
I owned up. he could lick me. I suppose he told the 
story himself with some embellishments. He was 
human, like the rest of us. 

“ At any rate, the next winter another boy, a big, 


A STORY OF SCHOOL DISCIPLINE. 69 

hulking fellow, thought he should like to have it to 
brag of that I had made a treaty of that kind with 
him. I got wind of what was coming, and I caught 
him up before the whole school. He had thrown a 
paper wad, expecting to be kept after hours. 

“ ‘ Fred Whipple, you may come here,’ I called out 
at once, drawing a big ruler from my desk. 

“ This wasn’t quite according to the programme he 
had laid out, but he went far enough to say : 

“ ‘ I expect you to come to me.’ 

‘‘‘All right,’ I replied, and I got there in three 
strides. Before he knew whether he was standing on 
his head or his feet, I had him in one corner, pum- 
melled till he was sore and blubbering for mercy. 

“ ‘ I — I — I thought you would treat me as you did 
Jack Harkins,’ he sobbed. 

“ ‘ Don’t you know that when the donkey put on the 
lion’s skin, he was detected as soon as he opened hia 
mouth? ’ I replied. ‘ You stupid fellow I have heard 
you bray for three months.’ ” 

Loud laughter and clinking of glasses followed the 
story, and the party settled back for a round of drinks. 

“ They are good enough for another hour,” said 
Mute Herring to himself, as he skipped out of the 
room. “ We’ll elect Hume after all, in spite of him- 
self.” 

An important question to be decided at the next 
day’s election was that of license or no-license to sell 
liquor in the various towns of the county. It had 
been kept clear of politics, but the no-license organ- 
ization was strong, and the feeling on the subject was 
earnest and even bitter. 

Commissioner Hnuie, E. 


70 


A PLIANT CANDIDATE. 


To the house of the president of the no-license or- 
ganization Mute rapidly betook himself, and soon 
roused him out of bed for an important consultation. 

“ Do you want to carry this district to-morrow ? ” 
he asked. “ Then put on your clothes and come with 
me.” 

When they entered Tommy’s, Tony was telling 
another story, but he was already tipsy, and the tone 
of the anecdotes had changed. 

“ To tell the truth,” said Tony, she was the pret- 
tiest-built girl that I ever had in school. She was just 
sixteen, — ” 

That man is the Democratic candidate for school 
commissioner,” said Mute to the temperance reformer ; 
“ do you want to see him elected? ” 

“ It would be a pollution,” was the reply. 

I am told that you have a man here who some- 
times acts as an informer ; who can slip into a party 
like that, play hale-fellow well met, drink as much as 
the best of them, and yet keep a clear head to carry 
out any little special work he has to do.” 

The temperance man was rather surprised that 
Mute knew it, but he acknowledged the fact. Some 
whispered consultation followed, ^and half an hour 
afterward a jolly-looking stranger with a five-dollar 
bill in his pocket had joined the convivial party. 

About the same time the Vox printing-office was 
lit up, and the compositors were kept busy till morning. 
****** 

About half-past seven the next morning, the few 
voters gathered about the poll in Norway saw two 
drunken men approaching. 


A POLITICAL TRICK. Yl 

“ He Aa^been on a tare,” remarked a ballot-peddler, 
pointing to th^ younger one. 

Indeed he looked so. He had fallen and was coated 
with mud, his shirt-front was stained with liquor, his 
bloodshot eyes rolled aimlessly, he reeled till his legs 
twisted, and his voice was hardly articulate. 

“ Say, ol’ feller,” he remarked confidentially to the 
:first man he reached, taking him by the button-hole 
and struggling to look him in the eye, “ say, ol’ feller, 
I-I-I’m the Kemodratic c-c-candidate for cool scomish- 
ner, ’n-n-n I want you to vote for me. W-w-will you 
doit?” 

The man tried to shake him off, but in vain. Tony 
was drunk, and he had a drunken man’s persistency. 
The citizen looked annoyed. By what seemed a pre- 
•concerted arrangement, a constable at once approached, 
Arrested Tony for drunkenness and disorderly conduct, 
and carried him off to the house of a neighboring 
justice of the peace. 

Tony struggled with the constable, and his maudlin 
companion shouted so loud in trying to rescue him, 
that the whole village was aroused. So an eager 
<}rowd followed the party to Judge Babbitt’s. 

Strange to say the justice was all ready, an imme- 
diate trial was ordered, prompt conviction was render- 
ed, and A fine of ten dollars and costs was imposed. 

Tony had no money, nobody cared to lend him any, 
and the justice ordered him to be locked up. At this 
instant, Koderick Hume, who had heard something of 
what was going on, rushed into the room, took in the 
situation at a glance, paid the fine, and agreed to take 
eare of Tony himself. He sent for a hack, got Tony 


72 


A PLIANT CANDIDATE. 


into it, and directed the driver to make for Jericho 
witlLall speed. 

Looking out of the window, he saw that some one 
ahead had left a paper at every door. One copy had 
been dropped by the roadside. Koderick stopped the 
carriage and picked it up. It was a Vox Populi ex- 
tra, mainly devoted to an article in big type headed : 
PKACTICAL TEMPEKANCE SEKMON. 

A DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE ON A DRUNK. 

TONY TIPPIT AKPESTED. 

DEMOCRATIC IDEAL OF A SCHOOL COMMISSIONER. 

CAN SUCH THINGS BE? 

VOTE FOR RODERICK HUME, AND NO LICENSE. 

The paper contained a detailed account of the trial 
just held, even stating the amount of the fine. Pod- 
erick swore the biggest oath that ever passed his lipSy 
and put his head through the window. 

‘‘Driver,” he said, “can you see the man that ia 
dropping these papers ? ” 

“ I could awhile ago,’’ replied the driver ; “ he must 
be a mile ahead.” 

“ Get to Jericho before he does, and I will give you 
five dollars,” said Poderick. 

The horses started on a gait to which they had long 
been unaccustomed, but all in vain. Wheu.the car- 
riage drove up to Tony’s cottage, his mother had the 
paper in her hand. There was a hard, dry look about 
her eyes that troubled Poderick more than lamenta- 
tions could have done. She came out to the door of 
the hack, and looked at her boy. There he lay in a 
stupor, covered with his own vomit. Neither spoke, 


DISASTER SOMETIMES HEALTHFUL. 73 

as Roderick and Mrs. Tippit, assisted by the driver, 
carried the filthy carcass into the house, and laid it 
away upon a bed. Roderick gave the man a five- 
dollar bill, and told him he need not wait. Then he 
came back into the house. 

“Mrs. Tippit,” he said, “ I am Roderick Hume, the 
other candidate for school commissioner. Your son’s 
condition is the result of a base and scandalous trick 
on the part of persons in my party to elect me although 
the people don’t like me. I want to say to you that I 
shall refuse to profit by this plot, but that I shall ferrit 
out the scamp who conceived it, and hold him up to 
the just execration of all respectable men.” 

Mrs. Tippit shook her head. 

“You are kind and generous,” she said, “and I 
must tell you why this indelible disgrace is probably a 
blessing to my Tony.” Here she hesitated. Then 
she said in low and hurried tones : “ My father, Mr. 
Hume, fills a drunkard’s grave. His father was a 
drunkard. Their poisonous blood runs in my veins, 
and in Tony’s. I had hoped he would never taste 
liquor. I have never dared even to caution him 
against it, lest it should enter his thoughts and stay 
there. How that he has acquired the appetite, I be- 
lieve nothing less than this can save him. It is ter- 
rible to say it, it is more terrible to feel it: but I had 
rather see him lie there like that, as the result of his 
first experience, than to see him elected to office. I — 
I hope that you will let him keep the school, Mr. 
Hume. This never happened before. If he stays at 
home here with me, I think it will never happen 
again.” 


74 


A PLIANT CANDIDATE. 


“ Mrs. Tippitt,” said Koderick, taking her hand and 
looking at her earnestly, “if I am elected, and if^ 
taking your word that it is really the only way to save 
your son, I quietly accept the office, I promise to be 
your friend and his. My first official act shall be to 
give him a certificate for the entire three years of my 
term.” 

He walked back to Norway slowly and thoughtfully, 
and spent the afternoon at home. When the returns 
came in, he found himself elected by a majority of 
forty-three. 

* -H- * * * * 

It was a week before Tony was clear-headed. When 
he was able to attend to business, his mother handed 
him a pile of bills. Here were charged the suppers 
at Tommy’s, all the hotel bills, boxes of twenty-five- 
cent cigars, gallons of liquor, horses at twenty dollars 
a day. The footing exceeded three hundred dollars. 

He was about to refuse to pay, on the ground that 
he had ordered none of these things, but supposed 
they were furnished by Billy Rudolph. But he was 
informed that Billy Rudolph had ordered them as his 
agent, and had shown written authority for so doing. 
Then Tony remembered the contract, and paid the 
bills. He also remembered the note for two hundred 
dollars. To be sure, there had been no consideration y 
but he found that the note had passed into the hands 
of a third party, and he had to pay it. Before he had 
settled his campaign expenses, he had drawn his last; 
dollar from the savings bank. 

He looked at Lucy, and sighed. 

“ O Lucy, Lucy,” he almost sobbed, “ to think that 


A TEMPERANCE LESSON WELL LEARNED. 75 


except for this we should have been married on 
Christmas.” 

‘‘ Except for this ? ” she repeated, blushing rosily : 
why you silly fellow, this makes it absolutely neces- 
sary. If you can’t take any better care of your money, 
you will be never safe till you have somebody to take 
care of you.” 

So they were married, and they lived contentedly. 
But Tony will never run for office again. Nor has 
he again tasted liquor. 


CHAPTEK Y. 


TWO PEDLERS. 

The town of Alaska was separated from the rest of 
Macedonia County by a range of high hills, extending 
south-east. In fact, Alaska never should have be- 
longed to Macedonia County at all, for it was more 
nearly related both geographically and commercially 
to the adjoining county on the west. Through this 
county, three or four miles over the line, ran the 'New 
York City and Behring’s Straits R. R., which crossed 
the Central at Picayuna, not twenty miles off. All 
produce was shipped this way ; all trading was done 
at this market, or at the nearer station, Lippitburgh. 
Only a particularly exciting district caucus could 
entice an Alaska man to Norway, for the distance in 
an air line was twenty-five miles, and the big hill 
added full ten miles more. 

Down this big hill toward Constantinople, the only 
village in the town of Alaska, there trudged, one bright 
morning in early January, a young fellow carrying a 
pedler’s pack. An old blue army overcoat was the 
only thing about him that looked American. Any 
one of a dozen other details stamped him a German, 
of that type which we erroneously but persistently call 
Dutch. He looked good natured, patient, awkward. 
His heavy hair hung straight down his forehead, and 
( 76 ) 


A SUBSCRIPTION AGENT. 


77 


had been trimmed by covering his head with a huge 
bowl and cutting off even with the brim all the locks 
which reached below it. His pack was big, but it 
was light, and he was humming to the air of a pop- 
ular waltz the song from Egmont : 

“ Freudvoll und leidvoll, 

Gedankenvoll sein,—" 

Just as he got to “ Z^om tode hetruht,^^ a voice called 
out from a cross-road : 

“ Hulloa, Dutchman ! 

'No German fails to resent this title, and the pedler 
replied, without turning his head : 

‘‘ I pe no Tutchman.” 

Where are you going ? ’’ persisted the inquirer. 

“ Going to mint mint own pizziness,” replied the 
pedler sturdily. 

‘‘ O come now, don’t be bearish,” continued the 
other ; “ what do you peddle? ” 

‘‘ Hotions.” 

‘‘ I am a pedler too.” 

“ You peddle ? Yot you peddle ? ” 

“ Cheek.” 

“ You carry a larch und faried assortment.” 

‘‘ Do you see that magazine ? ” and the stranger 
drew a meagre-looking periodical from his coat pocket. 

‘‘ Yaw, I see him.” 

‘‘ I have taken nearly twelve thousand subscribers 
to that magazine in two and a half years.” 

The German eyed him for a moment. 

“ Do you carry de supscripers aroundt mit you? ” 

It was a cruel question. The stranger’s tall, bony, 
awkward body was scantily covered by a threadbare 


78 


TWO PEDLERS. 


black suit far too small for him. His hands, which 
seemed all knuckles, were bare and red with cold. 
His boots were cracked, and showed through the seam& 
sometimes the stocking, and sometimes a hole in the 
stocking. His nose was nipped, and needed attention 
from a larger handkerchief than the little rag which 
now and then did service. Pinching povei^y griped 
him with a tight clutch, and grinned from every angle. 
But it had not wholly conquered him. He still strug- 
gled to be neat, and bravely maintained the assump- 
tion of a prosperous and stylish young gentleman. 
As the German looked longer he looked more kindly. 

“ Yot pe your name ? ” he asked. 

“ Contents Cadwallader,” replied the stranger, en- 
couraged by this show of interest. “ Queer name 
isn’t it ? You see the first four children in our family 
were brothers, and father called them Mathew, Mark^ 
Luke and John. He had got rather tired of boys, and 
wanted a girl. When the next one proved to be a boy, 
too, he declared he had had enough, and named him 
Finis. But there came another one after all, and 
they called him Appendix ; still another and they 
called him Supplement ; then me, and they called me 
Contents. I don’t know what they would have done 
for the next one, but my mother did not live to hear 
me cry, and I remained the baby of the family.” 

“If de papy taken zwelf tousan supscripers, how 
many moost de rest get ? ” 

Mingled with the sarcasm of this question was a 
certain friendliness that Con was quick to detect, and 
under which his bravado melted. 

“ I have told you my name,” he said to the Ger- 
man ; “tell me what to call you.” 


A FEIEND IN NEED. 




“ Gottlieb Krottenthaler.” 

“ Just say that over, please.” 

“ Gottlieb Krotten thaler. You pe one leetle deef,. 
don’t it ? ” 

“!N^o, but I should be dumb if I had to say that 
name very often. Well Coatleave Cotton-Tallow, I’m 
going to tell you a funny thing. When I said I had 
taken nearly twelve thousand subscribers, I should 
have been eleven thousand nine hundred and ninety- 
nine more exact if I had said I had taken nearly one. 

I have been at it six weeks, and I havn’t got a single 
name.” 

‘‘ Ish dot so ? You haf pluck, an’t it ? ” 

‘‘ Some pluck, but it is most gone. Cotton-tallow, I 
don’t see why I should do it, but I’m going to tell 
you a funnier thing yet.” 

“ Yell, veil, tell him.” 

“ Cotton-tallow, I haven’t slept in a bed for two- 
weeks or eaten a meal of victuals since night before 
last.” 

Tears started in the poor fellow’s eyes, half from 
physical weakness, half from shame at having revealed 
his destitution to a stranger. 

“ Dot foony,” said the German, as immovable 
as if he had just listened to some statistics of the 
Sandwich Islands, “ but I know somedings foonier as 
dot. You see dot gast house, dot hotle, in de vil- 
lage? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“Yell, you und I pe going straight after dot, 
und we pe going to eat in dot de piggest deener vot 
nefer vas.” , 


■80 


TWO PEDLEKS. 


This was too good to be true. Con’s eyes shone, 
but he was doubtful. 

‘‘ Isn’t it rather late for dinner? ” he asked, looking 
at the sun more than two hours past the meridian. 

“ Mein f reund,’’ said Gottlieb, I see you haf not 
•travel mooch. You go to dot hotel at zwoelf hour, 
vot you get? You get von slice roast bif, paked mit 
all de juice out, cut across de grain, mit all tough und 
no taste. You get zwei polled pettitoes, mit de skin 
off, all kolt und vatery. You get some tick slice of 
pread, und putter streaked by de knives of de oder 
boarders. You get von tin piece of pie, mit all lard 
und no filling. Und you pay feefty cents. Don’t it?” 

Con admitted that it was a fair picture, but all the 
same he wished himself set down to that very table. 

‘‘Now you go to dot same hotle, after all de meal 
pe cleared away, und you says, ‘ Meester, I pe late, 
but I vont some deener.’ He says, ‘ All right ; in a 
few meenutes.’ Den pooty soon de pell ring, und you 
go into de room und vat you fint ? You fint a pig 
slice von ham, mit de brown und white streaks, und 
drei fried eggs, turned ofer und de yolks yoost barely 
solid. You fint a coop of fresh-made tea, strong und 
steeped, not poiled. You fint a saucer of home put- 
up peaches, yellow und luscious in tick sirup. You 
fint two kints of rich cake, von mit spices in zwei 
streaks, und von shtuffed mit pig raisins. You fint a 
whole quarter of mince pie, von eench tick, shtrong 
mit cloves und allspice und prandy. Und ven you 
eat all dese dings und dink you nefer eat no more, you 
ask de landlord how mooch, und he say: ‘Feefty 
, eents ; ferry sorry dot you vas too late for de regular 


EXPERIENCES OF A COUNTRY SCHOOLMASTER. 81 

deener.’ You .paysh the money, und you pe not 
sorry.” 

Gottlieb had kept a side glance directed toward- 
Contents Cadwallader, and he noted with satisfaction 
how his description of the prospective dinner had- 
excited the starving fellow. On the ham, his pace 
quickened, with the eggs his stride became a foot 
longer, and by the time he heard of the mince-pie, he 
fairly flew. 

“ I reesk put he pe hoongry enough,” thought Gott- 
lieb to himself. And when they reached the tavern 
he induced the landlord to furnish a bill of fare 
almost identical with that he had prophesied. 

Con was inclined to be ravenous, but Gottlieb im- 
pressed upon him that there was plenty of food and 
plenty of time, and led him to talk freely of himself 
and how he became a magazine agent. 

He had been a teacher since he was man-grown, he 
said. He began in his own district, and had taught 
in half-a-dozen others in Scotia and Bombay. He 
had a fair knack of getting along with the boys, but 
he hadn’t much scholarship, and that was a fact. 
This hadn’t bothered him any under Squire Legg, be- 
cause he had managed never to attend any examina- 
tions, and Legg had always sent him his certiflcate by 
mail. But when this Hume was elected, Con made 
no effort to get a winter school. He knew it was use- 
less to try to get his certiflcate renewed, for Hume had 
published a letter to one of the supervisors, during, 
the campaign, saying that he would license nobody 
except graduates of colleges or normal schools, or old 
teachers that could pass a good deal harder examina- 


82 


TWO PEDLEES. 


tion than either. Con thought he might possibly 
have risked a trial in arithmetic and geography and 
grammar, and he was a whole team on spelling ; but 
when it come to universal history and the use of 
school apparatus, he didn’t want to be counted in. In 
the five years he had taught school, the only school 
apparatus he had come across was a ferule, and he 
hadn’t any rule for using that except that when he 
felt sort of sweaty between the shoulder-blades he knew 
the boy needed to have it laid on. In short he had 
to give up teaching because he knew he couldn’t get 
a certificate. 

“ Yot ees dot vot you call steefkeet?” interrupted 
the German. 

O, that was the teacher’s badge of ofiice. Nobody 
could draw any pay for teaching school, unless he 
could get the school commissioner to give him a cer- 
tificate. Some commissioners were liberal fellows 
who would give a certificate to anybody. Others were 
as particular as an old maid, and always insisted on a 
long examinaition. Legg was liberal and Con got his 
certificate easily. Hume was particular and Con 
couldn’t get one at all. It was tough, for there was a 
district near the village where the teacher was goin^ 
to leave next week, and where the trustee offered 
Con the place if he could only get a certificate. 

“But how ees dees;” asked the German, “dot von • 
commish pe so easy und von so hart ? Ees it not some 
law dot tells how und vy de steefkeet shall pe kive ? ” 

O yes, there was a sort of law, but it was general 
and indefinite. As a matter of fact, certificate^ de- 
pended very much on the humor and caprice as well 


BEFORE THE UNIFORM EXAMINATIONS. 83 

as the judgment of the commissioner, and especially 
upon his chances for re-election. Legg, for instance, 
licensed everybody, but he graded the certificate ac- 
cording to the applicant’s political infiuence. At his 
first examination, Jenny White was present. He 
called her up, and asked her to write her name and 
address. “ Why, isn’t your father Joel White, who 
was a delegate to the caucus?” “Yes.” “Miss 
White, what day of the month is it? ” “ The 17th, I 

think ; or the 18th. I guess it is the 18th.” “Yes, 
Miss White, it is the 18th. You are right. I see that 
you are accurate. Accuracy is the sheet-anchor of the 
teacher. You are evidently of the correct stamp, Miss 
White.” And he filled her out a first grade, and 
renewed it when the three years were up, without her 
even applying. As for Con, he never had any political 
friends or even any store clothes, and so he got a third 
grade every time. But that was good enough for 
him. He only wished he could get another, but alas ! 
those halcyon days had departed. 

Well, when he found out that Hume was elected. 
Con began to look about for some kind of work that 
didn’t require a license. He saw an advertisement of 
agents wanted at a fabulous salary. He answered it 
and got a circular, a copy of which he still had with 
him. 

Con said he was encouraged to undertake the pro- 
ject because the thing was all laid down for him^ 
Here were printed directions for conducting the con- 
versation, which he had only to commit to memory 
and follow. 


84 


TWO PEDLERS. 


The directions began as follows :* 

“Good morning; is Mrs. Jones in?” “I am Mrs. Jones.” 
“ My name is John Smith, from Paudunk. May I have a few 
minutes conversation with 3’'ou ? ” This is sufficient to admit the 
agent to the house, where he should sit down without any thought 
of leaving till he shall have finished his business; but 
with a determination to make himself agreeable and his con- 
versation agreeable to those present. If, in passing in, there 
should be no occasion for a few general remarks by way of intro- 
duction, the agent, as soon as he shall be seated, may begin at once 
as follows: 

I am one of several persons who are seeking to do good and 
make money by introducing Wood's Household Magazine to those 
who are not already subscribers. And we proceed upon the as- 
sumption that good thoughts are the most useful and important 
things to have. Every child and grown person must think con- 
stantly.' You know this by your own experience; and good 
thoughts make us good, and had thoughts make us bad. The 
chief difference between a saint and a savage is, that tlic thoughts 
of one are good and pure and ennobling, while those of the other 
are sensual and senseless. Yet, comparatively, how few parents 
realize the fact sufficient!}^ to be willing to do for children what 
they should. For instance, Mrs. Jones, what amount of money, 
probably, do you spend for periodicals and books which are 
especially designed to encourage your children to read and ‘think 
and know what will make them cheerful, warm-hearted, pure- 
minded, thoughtful and cultivated men and women? Of course 
it does not concern me what you spend or what you buy, except 
that you talk about it for our mutual benefit. ” 

After hearing any general remarks which Mrs. Jones shall 
make on this subject, you should cheerfully acknowledge all the 
merit that may be fairly claimed for any or all articles enumer- 
ated, and encourage her to discuss the peculiar merits of each. 
After which you may continue: “ Now, then, Mrs. Jones, I think 
you will agree with me that the general views which I have en- 
deavored to elucidate are eminently calculated to assist in pro- 

* The author pleads guilty at once of plagiarism and anachronism, and 
offers as an excuse that no flight of imagination could approach the reality, 
'i'hese directions are copied word for word from a catalogue and prospectus 
for 1879 of Wood's Household Magazine. 


HOW BOOK-AGEHTS ARE INSTRUCTED. 


85 


vidiiig for the child the best means for his intellectual and moral 
growth. You will also agree with me that the editors or makers 
of our magazines and books should thoroughly understand this 
matter, in order that they may work with an intelligent purpose. 
Yet I know of but one editor who does — I refer to the renowned 
S. S. Wood, editor of Wood’s Household Magazine. And I think 
that you will still further agree with me that Mr. Wood’s maga- 
zine is exceedingly well adapted to the various needs of the 
family. Being the authorized agent for this locality, I would 
like to show you a specimen copy for the present year.” 

With this remark you should draw from your pocket the Mag- 
azine referred to, and you will do well to conceal all signs of the 
book until you shall have reached this point. But before com- 
mencing to show the Magazine you should remark further, that, 
“But there is one feature of the Magazine to which I would first 
call your attention. You may or may not be aware of the fact 
that the really smart things that make any author’s reputation 
are but a small proportion of all his published w^ritings. Even 
a single paragraph has made some men famous. Hence, those 
magazines and papers that use only original matter are obliged 
to publish the many ordinary articles to secure the few that are 
extraordinary. Mr. Wood’s plan is to glean the greater part of 
his matter from the whole world of literature, instead of being 
confined to the original production of a few of the best authors. 
By this means he is enabled to present from month to month a 
royal scrap book, including many of the choicest treasurers of 
the best minds concerning the various subjects treated.” 

You are now prepared to enumerate the several departments, 
after which the various articles in each should be briefiy charac- 
terized, and sum np the case in something like the following : 

“ Now, as w'e have already seen, every mind must have some- 
thing to think about. It needs fireside thoughts, thoughts of our 
own and foreign countries, temperance thoughts, religious 
thoughts, thoughts pertaining to our health, and thoughts about 
the various occupations and professions — thoughts for growing 
wiser, better, more useful and more happy. And here you have 
them all in monthly instalments, served up in the most conven- 

Cummisaloner Hume. F. 


86 


TWO PEDLEKS. 


ient and attractive manner ; and for all the small sum of two 
dollars a year. Let me see — what is your address ? ” 

At this point you should produce your subscription list and 
proceed to write the address just as though it would be given as 
a matter of course. In case Mrs. Jones declines to give her 
address and subscription, you should encourage her to state 
frankly and fully the reasons, in order that you may meet them 
with fair arguments. 

Should Mrs. Jones still interpose objections, say to her that 
you are aware of the fact that you have no right to expect her 
to subscribe for the Magazine until she wants it, and that, when 
she wants it, she will find a way to get it at least for six months, 
and that your failure to make her want it must be owing to your 
feeble attempt to present a few of its many excellencies, and that 
lest you should be obliged to confess to Mr. Wood your lack of 
ability as an agent, you will try, try again. And so go back to 
some particular point and try, try again. And go to work with 
the determination to suceeed if takes all summer. 

Then inquire the name of the next family, and proceed to 
introduce yourself to them. 

Be enthusiastic, and bealways courteous and pleasing, whether 
treated cordially or otherwise ; but stick like a pitch plaster to a 
pine plank, until the name and full address, at least for three 
months, shall have been recorded on your list. 

Should you at any time during the interview lose the atten- 
tion of Mrs. Jones, stop at once and find it. Her presence may 
be required in another room, in which case you should adapt 
yourself to circumstances and go where it will be most conven- 
ient for her to listen. Apologize for the intrusion upon her time 
and attention, and justify such intrusion by a desire to do good 
and make money. 

Con had repeated these instructions glibly, like a ’ 
memorized exercise at school, and concluded: 

“ There, Cotton-tallow, that’s about the whole of it, 
though it isn’t more than about a quarter of what I 
learned. The rest is made up of highly decorated 
oonversation, in which these same ideas are repeated. 


HOW BOOK-AGEHTS ARE INSTRUCTED. 


87 


over and over again: to make them stick, I suppose.” 

Gottlieb had listened, reflectively and rather in- 
credulous. 

“You haf a paper vot tell you to do dees ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ To shtop de lady of de house in de meeddle of 
her vork, und to say you moost consoolt mit her apout 
de true, de goot und de bootiful ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“ To preach mit her for half an hour, und den saj 
she moost supscripe or else show some goot reason ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“ To tell her, if she ton’t supscripe, dot you vill 
pegin und do it all ofer again ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“Und if she koes off, to tell her you will follow her 
all ofer de house, till she supscripes for dree monta 
anyvay ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Show me dot paper.” 

Gottlieb took the circular, and pretended to read it 
diligently. 

“ Why, Cotton-tallow,” said Con, “ you have got it 
upside down.” 

‘ ‘ All recht. I pe cross-eyed up und down, ’ ’ replied 
the German, with offended dignity. But Con was not 
quite satisfied. 

“ Just read me what comes before the last para- 
graph; it has slipped my mind,” he said suspiciously. 

“ I like not to reat after tinner; he hurt mine eye,” 
said Gottlieb handing back the prospectus., “ Eeat 
him yourself.” 


:88 


TWO PEDLERS. 


“ Never mind, never mind,” replied Con, good- 
naturedly, reflecting that all men have their weak- 
nesses, and that Gotlieb had given him a good dinner, 
anyway. 

“ But mit all dese tell-you-how’s, you haf taken no 
supscripers. How ees dot ? ” 

“ Well, you see,” said Con, “ I suppose it is all right, 
but I never had any chance to go through it. It never 
seemed to fit, someway. The first house I called at, 
the name was Jones, sure enough, which I thought 
was a good omen. So I rang the bell, and asked as 
soon as the door opened: 

“ ‘ Is Mrs. Jones in ?’ 

“ But the answer wasn’t, ‘ I am Mrs. Jones,’ as I 
expected ; but, 

“ ‘ Yes, sir, she is. What do you want with her ?’ 

“ The fact is, it was Mr. Jones who came to the door, 
and he was the crosses! looking Jones I ever laid eyes 
on. I had my mind so made up to carry on my con- 
versation with her, that I replied, stammering a little : 

“ ‘ I-I should like to see her in private.’ 

“ ‘ 0 you would, eh ? Well what do want to see her 
in private about ? ’ 

“ That threw me back upon my prospectus. 

“ ‘ I am one of several persons who are seeking to 
do good and make money by introducing Wood’s 
Household Magazine — ’ 

“ ‘ 0 you are, eh ?’ he replied; ‘well I can J:ell you 
what else you are. You are the one of those several 
persons who are seeking to do good and make money 
that’s going to be kicked down my front steps in just 
four seconds.’ 


WHAT CAME FROM FOLLOWING THE INSTRUCTIONS. 89 

“ Well— I wasn’t kicked down. But I went down. 
It didn’t seem worth while to make the rest of my 
speech. I couldn’t get at Mrs. Jones, and Mr. Jones, 
was not in a receptive mood. 

“ But I wasn’t discouraged. Most husbands are 
away from home in the day time, and I thought I 
should get along better with their wives. 

“ But I didn’t. Sometimes I couldn’t get them to- 
listen at all. Sometimes they listened patiently 
enough, but simply said they didn’t want it and 
wouldn’t have it. Some were convinced, but hadn’t 
any money. Such cases, made me hopeful for a time, 
until I made up my mind that if they had had any 
money they wouldn’t have been convinced. 

“ The worst experience I had was last week. I had 
got down to my bottom dollar, and had to do some- 
thing or starve. I kept in mind tlie sticking-plaster 
and the pine plank, and I stuck to the only woman I 
found who showed any signs of having both, the will 
and the money to subscribe. In spite of my best 
efforts she decided not to invest, and seemed tired of 
the subject and anxious to get out of the room. I re- 
membered Mr. Wood’s injunction to follow her; and 
when she said : 

“ ‘ Well, that’s all the time I can give you now; I 
must go and make the beds.’ 

‘ ‘ I said : 

“ ‘ A]1 right, Mrs. Eobinson, I’ll go with you.’ 

“You should have heard her scream. She put her 
head out of the window, and yelled : 

“ ‘ Murder! tramps! outrage! thieves! ’ 

“ I was about to expostulate, when I saw two men 


90 


TWO PEDLERS. 


start for the house from the barn. One was swinging a 
flail and the other had a pitchfork. Both looked savage. 
The woman was screaming. I concluded that the 
room was rather warm and that I needed fresh air. 
The quickest way to get it seemed to be through the 
front door, and I went through the front door. As I 
hadn’t found it convenient to shut the door, I thought 
I wouldn’t open the .gate. I went over it, and I went 
down the road, and I didn’t stop in the next village. 

/ And whatever interest in. canvassing I may have re- 
tained was dreadfully weakened when I saw this article 
in the next week’s Vox Populi; ” and he handed Gott- 
lieb a copy of the paper. 

Gottlieb handed it back, remarking that as Con was 
an interested party he would probably add vivacity to 
the narrative by reading it aloud. So Con read as 
follows : 

ATTEMPTED OUTRAGE. 


A tramp’s turpitude. 

We are once more called upon to record a fiendish attempt at 
diabolical crime, most infamously planned, but providentially 
frustrated by the daring bravery of a noble husband and son. 

On Saturday last a tramp called at the residence of Nicholas 
J. Robinson. Esq., in Siam, concealing his scandalous purpose 
under the guise of an agent for some worthless magazine. He 
found Mrs. Robinson at home, and, under his literary mask, he 
was received by that lady with the patient courtesy for which 
she is noted. When he had finished his pretended talk, and she 
had politely declined to subscribe and risen to excuse herself, 
expecting him to depart, he rudely refused, and brutally ex- 
pressed his intention to follow her wherever she should go. 

She now recognized his true character, and her danger. He 
was a huge, hulking, beetle-browed scamp, with villainy stamped 


WHAT CAME FROM FOLLOWIi^G THE IKSTRUCTIOHS. 91 

on every feature, and the baleful gleam in his eyes showed that 
her peril was imminent. 

With singular coolness and self possesion, she ruslied to the 
window, and before the scoundrel could interrupt her, she had 
raised it and summoned assistance. Mr. Nicholas J. Robinson, 
and his son, Alfred B. Robinson, were in the barn and heard her 
cry for help Without pausing to reflect that they had no 
weapons fit to contend with a villain undoubtedly , armed to the 
teeth, they rushed into the house. The struggle which ensued 
was short but terrible, and ended in the complete defeat of 
the scoundrel, who escaped by leaping from the second story 
window. A party was immediately formed to search for him, 
but at our last advices he had not yet been found. We would 
not like to answer for his life, if he is captured. 

There was a moment’s pause, after Con had finished 
reading. Then Gottlieb asked: 

“ So you pe not so eager now to take swelf tousan 
supscripers in two years und a halb. Why you no try 
to get a steefkit and go pack to teach ? ” 

“It would be utterly useless to try; ’’said Con. 
“ This Hume will never license a fellow like me.” 

“ Try him, try him; ” urged Gottlieb. “ Tell your 
shtory, dot you haf teach, dot you can teach, and dot 
you moost teach or shtarve. Und say if he gif you 
time, you will pe examine on vot he ask.” 

After some discussion Con agreed to do so, and wrote 
the following letter on the spot. 

Constantinople, N. Y., Jan. 7, 1876. • 
Roderick Hume, 

School Commissioner, Horway, Y. Y. 

Sir : — I have been a teacher for five years. I can 
teach pretty well, and I can’t do anything else at all. 
My certificate expired last November. I didn’t think 
it would be fair to ask Commissioner Legg to renew it. 


92 


TWO PEDLEKS. 


and from what I had heard of your intentions, I was 
satisfied that you would not grant me a new one. I 
am satisfied now that you would not, if you insisted 
upon my passing an examination upon any subject ex- 
cept those I have taught. 

- But I should like to make this proposition. A trus- 
tee near here wants me, because his present teacher 
cannot manage the school. I want the school, because 
my money is gone and I have my mother as well as 
myself to support. The testimonials which I inclose 
will satisfy you that in everything but scholarship I 
am competent to, take charge of the school, and I am 
ready to have my scholarship tested in all the branches 
commonly taught. So the question will probably be 
only as to these new subjects with which you require 
teachers to he acquainted. 

Under these circumstances, would it be too much to 
ask you to give me a temporary certificate, say for 
three months, till you have time to visit my school ? 
Besides the ordinary branches, I will undertake to be ex- 
amined then in any one or two of these new subjects you 
may specify ; and I will go on in this way as fast as I can 
until I reach the standard you may propose to establish. 

If you can consistently grant this favor, you will be 
doing a kindness greater than you probably conceive to 
Your obedient servant. 

Contents Cadwallader. 

The return mail brought him this letter. 

Norway, N. Y., Jan. 8, 1876. 

Contents Cadwallader, 

Constantinople, N. Y. 

Dear Sir: — I have, as yet, established no definite 


HOW CONTENTS GOT A CEKTIFICATE. 


93 


rules as to granting certificates, and am not likely to 
make any rules which would prevent my granting a 
certificate under, the circumstances you narrate. 

Your letter is well expressed, well written, well 
punctuated. Your testimonials are entirely satisfac- 
tory. I therefore inclose a certificate of the third grade 
and for six months. Within that time I shall call up- 
on you and give you an examination. If you are then 
prepared to give the essential principles of Civil Gov- 
ernment and the leading facts of American History, I 
presume I shall give you a second grade certificate. 
When you can add to this a fair knowledge of the prac- 
tical elements of Natural Science, and some general 
acquaintance Vi th Literature, you will be eligible for 
a first-grade. 

Wishing you success based on persistent progress,. 
I am. Yours respectfully, 

Koderick Hume, 

School Commissioner. 

So Con began his school with a light heart. 


CHAPTER Yl. 


A SCHOOL TKUSTEE. 

Deacon Jotham Granger was a good man. His wife 
thought not, and he agreed with her. So did the 
.neighbors, who united in sponging on him and sneer- 
ing at him. All the same he was a, good man. Alas, 
he was also that most luckless of mortals, a good- 
natured man. 

Not that anybody knew it: for he was gruff and fret- 
ful and fault-finding, dissatisfied with himself and dis- 
trustful of others, often ready with a gift and a “ No,” 
but always with the “ No ” first. People generally 
disliked to deal with him. Few are deeply enough 
read in nature’s paradoxes to know that your sleek, 
smiling rosy, affable old gentlman, with a benevolent 
forehead reaching over to the back of his head, who is 
always so glad to see you and so ready to help you and 
so sorry you can’t stay, longer, is sleek and rosy and 
affable because he is too shallow and selfish to be dis- 
turbed by consideration for others. He gives you a 
cordial grasp and a gushing welcome, but he gives you 
nothing else, unless he is paid for it. He is never dis- 
appointed in his fellows, because he never trusts them. 
He is perfectly willing to hear you beg, because he 
knows you cannot touch his sympathy or his pocket- 
book. He dismisses you with bland smiles and plaus- 
(94) 


THE GOOD-KATUKED MAH. 


95 


able excuses and flattering promises because that is less 
trouble than to have a scene. If you meet him often 
enough, the excuses grow threadbare, the promises go 
to protest, and you learn to smile with contempt as 
you see him invariably go by on the other side. But 
few people meet him often enough for this, and the 
crowd bask in the sunlight of his countenance. 

The collector for any real charity will be amazed to 
And how large a proportion of his receipts comes from 
men who in manner are churlish and crabbed. They 
don’t want to hear you, they listen impatiently, they 
slight your statements, they declare it is all a humbug 
— but they hand over the money. Such men are cross 
because they are good-natured. Mr. Darwin teaches 
us that animals unconsciously develop weapons of de- 
fence as they come to need them. The good-natured 
man mourns over his increasing gruff ness and distrust 
as signs of a degenerate heart; but they are signs that 
nature means to protect him from being plundered. 
To the shrewd observer they are signs that he needs to 
be protected, and that when his gruffness is OA ercome 
his pocket-book may be tapped. But shrewd ob- 
servers do not abound. Unfortunately they are com- 
monest among those who make it a business to plunder. 
If such break down, the wall of asperity and reach the 
■ citadel, they leave behind them increased distrust, 
which builds a yet more forbidding wall. Eventually 
the heart is so hidden that its very owner doubts if it 
be there ; and all the world wonders that a man can be 
so selflsh. 

Jotham Grranger’s father was a first settler, and left 
4iim a farm of four hundred cultivated acres, with 


96 


A SCHOOL TKUSTEE. 


plenty of good buildings, not a penny of mortgage, and 
several thousand dollars in money and stocks. He was 
thus made the richest man in town. Consequently 
most of the people looked upon him as eminently fitted 
to support benevolent enterprises, while the rest of 
them considered him eminently fitted to support them- 
selves. The number was amazing of speculators who 
needed only a small backing by his capital to make 
both him and themselves millionaires; of geniuses 
who had nearly perfected an invention which would 
revolutionize machinery, and only waited for a few 
hundred dollars to complete it ; of talented young men 
whose souls soared above the plow and saw-horse, and 
who expected him to put them through college. 

Xow Jotham had a general idea that it was his duty 
to take care of the property his father had accumu- 
lated. He was wise enough to see that he could best 
benefit society by preserving and improving his farm, 
paying fair wages and exacting fair work, dealing with 
others liberally but on a sound business basis, always 
ready and able to give work, but never giving anything 
but work to those able to work. Had he adhered to 
this theory infiexibly he might have been hated and 
respected. Unfortunately he yielded now and then 
to his good-nature, so he was hated.and despised. 

As he grew to be a young man, he was looked upon 
as a catch. He knew in a general way that a girl who 
showed that she wanted him was a girl that he didn’t 
want. But he was too good-natured to snub a perse- 
vering young woman, and consequently found himself 
continually affixed to some one he did not like, with^ 
out a chance of getting at the one he did like. One* 


HOW HE POPPED THE QUESTION. 97 

night he felt that patience had ceased to be a virtue, 
and resolved to give the mitten once for all to a cer- 
tain Dorothy Vann, who for months had clung to him 
like a burdock. 

“ Dorothy,” he said, “ I have tried to screen you 
from making a fool of yourself till 1 have made a fool 
of myself. Now let’s quit, once for all.” 

Dorothy dissolved in tears. 

“ Come, Dorothy,' there is no good in that,” he 
said, impatiently. “ The quicker we understand one 
another, the better.” 

Dorothy sobbed violently. 

“ 0 come now, Dorothy,” he begged, “ don’t do 
that. I don’t want to be unkind.” 

Dorothy went into hysterics. 

“ 0 Dorothy, dear Dorothy,” he exclaimed, thor- 
oughly scared, and supposing it was the only way he 
could save her life, “ don’t die, my dear, darling 
Dorothy.” 

Dorothy lay back in a dead faint, her eyes rolled up 
under her forehead, her lips slightly parted, her breath 
hardly perceptible. 

“ 0 my own, my precious, my sweet, don’t break my 
heart, my poor, loving Dorothy,” and he folded her 
in his arms and covered her with kisses. 

But she only moaned faintly. 

Dorothy, you must get better. Don’t you know 
that I can’t live without you. Give me one little 
squeeze, darling, to show that you can hear me.” 

But she moved no muscle. 

“ 0 Dorothy, Dorothy,” he plead, now sobbing 
himself, “ come to yourself, darling, be mine and tell 


98 


A SCHOOL TKUSTEE. 


me when you will marry your heart-broken Jotham.’^ 

Dorothy slowly opened her eyes, and replied faintly 
hut firmly: 

“Next month, dear Jotham, since you insist upon 
it.” 

She did it : and within six months she had convinced 
him by her “ damnable iteration ” that she had yielded 
only to his importunities, had married him through 
pity, and might have done much better. This point 
gained, she devoted herself to playing the role of 
martyr to his selfishness and lack of the finer sensibili- 
ties. He supposed she must be right, blamed himself 
for not making her happier, and lived a conscience- 
stricken life. 

He was no luckier as a school trustee. He was first 
elected when the rate-bill was abolished, in 1867. He 
had been an earnest advocate for free schools, and had 
just become the father of a little Polly. So he ac- 
cepted with enthusiasm the claims upon him of the 
rising generation and resolved that Constantinople 
should have a school to be proud of. He got a fine 
building erected, he provided apparatus, he graded 
the grounds and set out trees, and he hired the biggest- 
priced teacher in the county. 

Unfortunately the teacher had got high wages only 
for well developed muscle. He was neither a scholar 
nor an instructor. He never used a blackboard, and 
he considered a globe merely an inconvenient kind of 
map. Before spring the paint was pencilled and soiled, 
the apparatus was destroyed, the plaster blackboards 
were cracked and dented, the wall maps were used to 
supplement broken panes of glass, and the outhouses 


HOW HE WAS DEVELOPED. 


9 ^ 


were unapproachable. The scholars were turbulent, 
the district was disgusted, and Jotham was discouraged. 
At first he had struggled against the shiftless manage- 
ment of the teacher, and when he could see no improve- 
ment he had thought of discharging him. But his 
own lack of education made him doubtful as to what 
he had a right to require, and sympathy for the teacher 
as a self-supporting young man made him hesitate to 
turn him out of a situation. He let him finish the 
term, and when the exhibition was over and the last 
scholar had departed, Jotham surveyed the ruins with 
a sad heart. 

The next school -meeting was stormy. The tax had 
been heavy and the school disgraceful. Jotham re- 
fused to run for trustee, but no one would take the 
office. 

“You’ve got us into this; now you get us out 
again,” they told him. And they voted the least pos- 
sible tax, and passed resolutions involving the greatest 
possible requirements. For some years this was annu- 
ally repeated. Once Jotham absolutely refused to 
serve, and paid the legal fine to the supervisors. Then 
the neighbors appealed to his good-nature and he 
allowed himself to be re-appointed to the very position 
from which he had just paid 15.00 to be relieved. 
After that he resigned himself to certain drugery con- 
nected with the office, but gave it very little, time or 
attention. Sometimes he hit upon a good teacher, 
oftener he hit upon a poor one. He regarded it as a 
matter of luck. Certificates indicated nothing, the 
grade depending on the caprice of the commissioners^ 
Recommendations were of no significance, being given 


100 


A SCHOOL TRUSTEE. 


as often as otherwise to get rid of a disagreeable in- 
cumbent. Nor could Deacon Granger rely on his 
knowledge of human nature. He hired one splendid 
fellow, earnest, enthusiastic, pious, popular : surely the' 
school must prosper now. But the teacher was made 
superintendent of the Sunday-school, and soon involved 
himself in exhibitions and festivals which took all his 
time and all the children’s energy, so that school was 
a practical failure. 

Then the deacon sent to one of the normal schools, 
and got a fresh graduate. This was a young man 
abounding in long hair and long words, who smiled in 
a superior way as he asked what had been the order of 
exercises and the methods of instruction. Then he 
told the children that hereafter text-books would be 
discarded. 

“You have been dwarfed and stunted by deductive 
instruction,” he said to his gaping pupils; “ I propose, 
to stimulate your intellectual development by a strictly 
inductive presentation of object matter.” 

For a while pupils and parents alike considered this 
man an idiot. But though he did some foolish things 
and said a good many, he really had a fair foundation 
training. For a long time he knew his subjects better 
than he did his scholars ; but as he grew older and dis- 
covered by repeated failures that there were things he 
had not yet learned, he became a capable teacher and 
did good work. Long before he got to this point he 
had left Constantinople, and left behind him an at- 
mosphere unfavorable to successors from the same in- 
stitution. 

So the deacon took no more pride in the district 


EXPERIMEI^TII^G WITH TEACHERS. 101 

school, and never allowed his own child to attend it. 
If the teacher called for repairs, he made them as cheap 
as possible. If more blackboard was demanded, he 
took over a pot of black paint and smeared a few feet 
of wall. Chalk he furnished by the pound ; experience 
had taught him that a box of crayons very soon dis- 
persed itself over the village. Maps and globes he re- 
fused with a smile so very ironical and positive that 
the teacher who had asked for these never ventured to 
call for any other kind of apparatus. In short, the 
deacon had given up all hope of a good school, and 
confined himself to furnishing a cheap one. His an- 
nual reports were satisfactory to the district, and 
hardly a dozen persons ever attended the school 
meeting. 

The teacher hired for the winter of 1875-6, gave the 
deacon a new kind of trouble. The jackanapes devoted 
himself to the deacon’s daughter. He was a shiftless 
fellow. He had that sort of sandy complexion which is 
always sprouting with a beard that never develops. 
He had a scrubby mustache, a pimpled nose and greedy 
little eyes, like a pig’s. He wore a thread-bare black 
suit, frayed at the edges, spotted with grease and 
showered with dandruff. His hoots were never pol- 
ished, and his hair was never combed. His hands were 
grimy with dirt accumulated from infancy, and his 
nails were of varying lengths but in uniform mourn- 
ing. His only necktie was a brass collar-button, and 
his shirt-bosom, originally ruffled, was ragged and 
Spotted like the pard. He was vulgar in manners, in 
language and in heart. He was a lazy, low-minded. 

Commissioner Hume. G. * 


102 


A SCHOOL TRUSTEE. 


bullying coward, always in debt, always quarrelling, 
without one title to respect. And Polly Granger 
loved him. 

At least the deacon thought so. Polly was a wilful 
girl. From childhood up she had know nothing of 
control. Her mother ruled the deacon by hysterics, 
but she could not rule Polly that way. In fact Mrs. 
Granger stood more in awe of Polly’s sharp tongue and 
sharper eyes than of anything else in the world and Polly 
knew it. The child is unhappy who cannot respect its 
mother, and such a child was Polly. Poor Polly ! 

She loved her father, but she knew how to coax him 
into slavish obedience. She was the autocrat of the 
household. And against advice and remonstrance she 
had received the pointed attentions of this abominable 
Jeremiah Slack. How the deacon dispised him; how 
he wished he had never hired him ; how he longed for 
the year to end, when his contract would expire. Four 
months of it had not yet passed, and here was Polly as 
good as engaged to him. The deacon was heavy- 
hearted. 

On a Saturday afternoon in January, Jerry was 
hanging about the deacon’s, as usual. Just at the 
moment, he was holding yarn for Polly to wind. Mrs. 
Granger lay on the lounge reading one of Ouida’s 
novels, and the deacon was glancing at the couple over 
the top of his newspaper, and sighing at the hopeless- 
ness of interfering. As the front gate clicked, Polly 
ran to the window to see who was approaching. 

“ 0 here comes a Jew pedler,” she exclaimed, clap- 
ping her hands; “ now for some fun.” 


THE PEDLER CALLS. 


103 


“ Don’t let him in, Polly,” said Mrs. Granger; “ we 
don’t want any pedler’s truck.” ^ ^ 

“ I beg your pardon, mamma,” said Polly with a 
profound courtesy, “ but pedler’s truck is just what 1 
do want — Please come in,” her mother heard her say- 
ing at the door, “ we are just dying to be hum- 
bugged.” 

Sauciness was becoming to Polly, and Gottlieb gazed 
at her in honest admiration. 

“Von man tie villing, mees, if he pe humbug py 
you.” 

Polly turned up her noSe a little, as she ushered him 
in, but not enough to conceal a gratified blush. 


■CHAPTER VII. 


A NEW SCHOLAR. 

Gottlieb was an admirable pedler. His pack was 
■filled with those little notions which are always needed 
in a household, and as to the buying of which the only 
question is as to quality and price. Gottlieb’s goods 
were all excellent and were offered rather lower than 
usual, so that he rarely failed to find customers where 
he was permitted to fairly display his stock. More- 
over, he had some native humor and a cosmopolitan 
experience which made his visits a welcome diversion 
from the monotony of farm and village life. Polly 
was charmed with him. He parried her saucy sarcasm 
with such cool dexterity, and at the same time mani- 
fested so openly his admiration for her, that she felt at 
once curbed and exhilarated, while his broken English 
amused her beyond measure. 

It need hardly be said that the more Gottlieb aroused 
Polly’s interest he provoked Mr. Slack’s contempt. 
That Prof. Jeremiah Slack, as he always signed him- 
:self, should be for a moment thrown into the shade by 
a miserable Dutch Jew was certainly unreasonable, 
and he presently felt called upon to assert his position. 

“ Come, Polly,” he said, “ don’t fool any longer 
with that fellow. If you want to throw your money 
away, put it into the stove, but don’t encourage this 
(104) 


PEOFESSOE JEEEMIAH SLACK. 105 ' 

chap to swindle the rest of the community. I never 
buy anything of a pedler.” 

“ Indeed,” said Gottlieb, deferentially, “ what for 
ees dot ? A¥hy you no puy of de petler ? ” 

“ Why ? ” repeated Jerry; “ why, because you ped- 
lers are cheats, all of you. You pick up refuse stock,, 
and sell it for three times the price of first-class goods,, 
and by the time your customer finds out how you lied 
to her, you are in the next town and out of her reach. 
You don’t catch me that way. I never bought any- 
thing of a pedler yet.” 

“ For shame — ” Polly began indignantly, but Gott- 
lieb was already replying quietly: 

“ I tink I know what for you nefer puy notinks.’^ 

“ Why ? ” sneered Jerry, insolently. 

“ Pecause de petler sells only for de cash.” 

“ Ha, ha, ha! ho, ho, ho! ” roared the deacon, will- 
ing to exaggerate his merriment at the expense of the 
irate but helpless pedagogue; “ha, ha, ha! had you 
there. Slack ; your reputation for empty pockets must 
be wide-spread.” 

Mr. Slack indulged some ineffectual motions and 
muttered something in an undertone about blanked 
impudence, but on the whole found it wise to relapse 
into obscurity. The deacon’s attention was directed 
to Gottlieb, whom he began to question as to his ex- 
perience as a pedler, and his views on many subjects. 
He was so interested in Gottlieb’s answers that when 
the supper-bell rang the deacon insisted that Gottlieb 
should take tea with him, and finally that he should 
stay all night. 

Mrs. Granger was inclined to resent this reception 


106 


A N^EW SCHOLAR. 


of a strange pedler, but the deacon was thoroughly in 
earnest, and Polly seconded the invitations the more 
eagerly in order to punish her humiliated and sulky 
lover. The more the deacon talked with Gottlieb, 
the better he liked him for his frankness and shrewd- 
ness. 

“You were made for something better than ped- 
ling,” he said at length to Gottlieb; “ why don’t you 
get an education ? ” 

“ Ach! ” sighed Gottlieb, “ I can nicht reat und 
write veil efen in Gherman. Yot could I to in Eeng- 
leesh ? ” 

“ Go to school, man; go to school,” said the deacon. 
“ That is what our schools are for, to provide every 
man with a good education at public expense. This 
is a republic, you know, and our safety depends on the 
intelligence of the masses. So our schools are free 
alike to rich and poor, and they offer to everybody 
willing to study an opportunity to become thoroughly 
educated. In the despotic monarchies of Europe, a 
man must stay where he is born, but here he may rise 
to any position, if he will accept the instruction freely 
offered him.” 

“ Und de eenstruction freely offert here comes troo 
dees Meester Slack, don’t it ? ” inquired Gottlieb, 
doubtfully. 

The deacon winced. 

“ Between you and me,” he said, “ Mr. Slack isn’t 
quite the teacher we ought to have here, but still you 
could get a very fair start in our school. Why not 
stay here with us and go to school this winter ? You 
can peddle on Saturdays enough to pay all we should 


UJ^WELCOME PUPIL. 


107 


charge you for board. Polly and I will try and help 
you out with your lessons at home. You will find 
that life opens altogether a new field for you, when 
you can read and write and cipher.” 

After some consideration of details, Gottlieb thank- 
fully closed with the deacon’s proposal. It was well 
that the arrangement was consummated that evening, 
for when Mrs. Granger was told of it she made the 
night very uncomfortable for the deacon, and might 
have swerved him from anything but his promise. 

Prof. Slack’s indignation on Monday morning, when 
Gottlieb presented himself as a new scholar and gave 
his residence as at Deacon Granger’s was indeed 
grievous. He himself had wanted to board at the 
deacon’s, and had expressed the wish on several occa- 
sions, only to have it promptly and positively refused. 
Then Polly had shown a decided liking for the pedler, 
and would now be constantly in his society. Worse 
than all Professor Slack felt uncomfortably conscious 
that the pedler was his superior. In the little en- 
counter of Saturday Gottlieb had not only worsted 
him, but had looked at him out of cool gray eyes with 
a glance he could not meet. One thing was certain: 
Gottlieb must he got out of the school and out of the 
village. But how ? He came to school under the 
deacon’s express direction, and the deacon was trus- 
tee. So he must receive at least seemingly respectable 
treatment. 

“ However, he shall find out that the teacher has a 
good many legal rights he can use to make a scholar 


108 


A NEW SCHOLAE. 


uncomfortable,” muttered Jerry to himself; “he 
won’t stay long if I can help it.” 

But Gottlieb was a model pupil. He was obedient, 
respectful, studious. He began in the ABC class, 
but he worked so hard, often studying till midnight in 
his little room, that with the help he got at home he 
soon finished all the readers used in school, crept rap- 
idly through the arithmetic, and got a firm footing in 
the higher classes. 

“ It’s wonderful how far common-sense goes in get- 
ting learning,” the deacon mused, as he saw his pupil 
pass him in every study, within a few weeks of the 
time that the deacon first drilled him in the alphabet. 
“ Here our children spend a year for what he gets 
through in a week. I wonder if it isn’t better to begin 
later, instead of sending children to school from the 
time they are four years old to the time they get 
married. Somehow Gottlieb goes at knowledge in a 
business-like way, instead of lolling over his books, like 
our youngsters.” 

This rapid progress was wormwood to Professor 
Slack, the loop-holes in whose scanty learning were 
already being detected by his too ambitious pupil. 
He sought in vain for a pretext to humilate Gottlieb 
by punishing him; finally he grew desperate, and 
manufactured a pretext. 

The school was always disorderly, and whispering 
was universal. Amidst the buzz of one morning session 
he called out: 

“ Cotton-tallow, were you whispering ? ” 

“No, sir,” replied Gottlieb, respectfully. 


PKOF. SLACK TRIES CORPORAL PUNISHMENT. 109 


“ Come here,” thundered Professor Slack, resolved 
to play the bully. 

Gottlieb obediently came forward, and when Professor 
Slack told him to hold out his hand, he held it out. 
The teacher took from the desk a hickory ruler two 
feet long, two inches wide, and half an inch thick, and 
with all his strength he laid twelve blows upon each of 
Gottlieb’s hands. 

When he had finished, Gottlieb looked critically at 
his puffed and discolored palms, and remarked : 

“ Professor Slack, dot hurt more dan he seem to you 
ven you pe angry. You petter ko him lighter ven you 
haf oop dese leetle scholar.” 

“ None of your impudence,” shouted Professor 
Slack, flushed with insolence at so completely subject- 
ing his rival: “ I didn’t lick you for just whispering, 
hut for showing yourself off as a d — d Dutch liar.” 

A murmur of disgust at Professor Slack’s coarse 
brutality arose among the scholars, but Gottlieb re- 
marked contemplatively : 

“ Ven ein man pe a teacher he know very mooch 
things, don’t it ? ” 

“ Yes, ‘ he know very mooch ting’,” repeated Jerry, 
mockingly; “ more things than ever you’ll know, you 
cheap Jew pedler.” 

“ Put I know von ting as you ton’t know,” con- 
tinued Gottlieb, coolly but significantly, and again 
making Jerry uncomfortable by a glance he could not 
meet. 

“ What is that?” asked Professor Slack, uneasily. 

“ Dees,” replied Gottlieb with quiet emphasis, “ dot 


110 


A NEW SCHOLAR. 


you pe koing to apolochise in less dan seexty seconts 
for de names you haf call me.” 

“ How do you know I am going to ? ” asked Jerry, 
cowed, but unable to understand why Gottlieb should 
submit to feruling but resent an insult. 

“ Pecause if you ton’t, I shall peetch you troo dot 
vinto: unt te seexty seconts pe most oop.” 

“ I — I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. Cotton- 
tallow,” said Professor Slack, abjectly. 

“ ^^’efer mind vot you meant,” said Gottlieb; “ to 
you apolochise before dis school ? ” 

“ Yes, yes, certainly; I spoke hastily, I apologize,” 
Jerry assented eagerly, as Gottlieb took a step toward 
him. 

But as Gottlieb turned to go to his seat. Professor 
Slack’s eyes glared with venom. 

vL# 

^ 

When Gottlieb approached the school-house, the 
next morning, he saw a young man so standing as to 
purposely obstruct his path. This was the acknowl- 
edged village rough — a big boy who occasionally came 
to school to brow-beat the teacher, but who spent most 
of his time in swilling down cheap beer and insulting 
strangers. The whole village feared him, not because 
he was physically so very powerful, but because he was 
a bully, and stood on the vantage-ground of shame- 
lessness. 

So when Gottlieb saw this Sam Hutchins in his way 
he felt that Sam intended to make trouble. Jeremiah 
Slack lounged by the door, and looked on approvingly. 


PROFESSOR SLACK TRIUMPHS. 


Ill 


'Gottlieb knew that his teacher meant to revenge him- 
self through Sam Hutchins. 

It was Gottlieb’s turn to be scared. He seemed to 
hesitate a moment whether to retreat ; then he came 
on cautiously and endeavored to pass by the burly 
Hutchins. 

“ Who be you a hittin’ on, you cussed Dutchman ? ” 
said Sam, pushing against him ; “ you put on too blank 
many airs fur a furriner, ’n I’m goin’ to take ye down 
a little.” 

“ I peg parton,” said Gottlieb humbly; “ I haf not 
mean to hit you.” 

“ 0 you haven’t mean to hit me, eh ? Well, I mean 
to hit you, and pretty blank-blank hard, too. So you 
may jest git yourself ready fur a zephyr. I’m the 
Simoon of the Desert, I am, and you’re goin’ to git 
scorched.” 

“ Professor Slack,” pleaded Gottlieb, piteously, 
‘‘ dis is de school-ground, und I pe your scholar. I 
■call on you to safe me from dees man.” 

“ Yes, I’ll ‘ safe ’ you, I will — in a horn. When he 
gets through with you, I’m going to give you a whal- 
ing, myself, for your impudence yesterday. Your day 
of reckoning has come, and when you have paid your 
bill to Sam, I’ll call on you.” 

“ Meester Hutchins,” begged Gottlieb, turning in 
despair to him once more, “ I pe not feeling well. 
Home Oder time I see you. Shust let me ko dees time. ” 

This pusilanimity was more than either of the con- 
federates had hoped for, and it tickled them hugely. 
Sam pulled up his sleeves and answered Gottlieb by 
^ blow. Gottlieb caught it upon his arm, and without 


112 


A FEW SCHOLAR. 


an attempt to strike back stood for five ifainutes parry- 
ing awkwardly the shower of strokes that fell on him 
from every side. 

Gottlieb’s helpless cowardice made Sam the more 
provoked that he could not break through the unskil- 
ful but effective guard of Gottlieb’s arms. So without 
paying any attention to his own defence, and feeling 
already weary, he swung his fists with all his force to 
break down Gottlieb’s guard from above. Just as his 
right arm fell the second time, ,Sam felt a stinging: 
sensation in the right eye, followed by another in his 
left eye and a third on his nose which sent him stag- 
gering to the ground. While he was wondering whether 
he had been struck by lightning or kicked by a New 
Jersey mule, he heard Gottlieb saying: 

“ Meester Hutchins, I pe retty for some more pe 
scorch by de Simoon of de Desert. I feel petter as I 
vas.” 

Sam struggled desperately upon his feet only to be- 
met by another swinging blow, that left him crushedi 
and helpless. 

“ That’s enough,” he said, “ I’m licked,” and he- 
crawled slowly to his feet, and got home as best he 
might with the little eyesight left him. 

Gottlieb turned about to where Professor Slack had 
been standing, but Professor Slack had entered the 
school-room and was busy at his d^sk. 

“ I haf settlet my account mit Meester Hutchins/’^ 
said Gottlieb, “ und if you haf a leetle pill — ” 

“No, I haven’t any pill,” replied Professor Slack,., 
with a desperate attempt to be facetious, “ and I don’t 


PROFESSOR SLACK IS DISCOMFITED. 


113 


•want any little pill or any, other kind of physic from 
you.” 

The boys were disposed to make fun of Sam Hutch- 
ins for allowing himself to be vanquished by so weak 
.an antagonist, but Sam nodded his head sagely. 

“ Any of you that think so had better try it on. 
Mind you, he struck his first blow with his left fist.” 

As for Gottlieb, when he got to his room, that noon, 
he murmured: 

“ Dere vas some goot mit de sant-packs after all. 
A leetle science is petter as none. ” 

And in token of gratitude he induced Deacon 
Grranger'to subscribe for the American Agriculturist. 


CHAPTEE VIII 


THE EEV. OLLAPOD GULLIYER. 

The children of Constantinople were brought up to 
believe in God and the Kev. Ollapod Gulliver. I in- 
tend no irreverence by thus stating a fact based on no 
irreverence. We grasp the infinite only through the 
finite which most nearly approaches it. As a supremely 
perfect being the children of Constantinople could 
think of God only as a little better than the Eev. 
Ollapod Gulliver. 

So far as they could see, Mr. Gulliver himself was 
absolutely perfect. Certainly he never did anything 
wrong, nor did he do anything wrongly. The right 
thing7 at the right time, in the right way, always and 
invariably : that was the Kev. Ollapod Gulliver. 

And his goodness was never oppressive. You felt 
no humiliation in being inferior to him, because you 
never thought of rivalling him. You ^mply felt grate- 
ful for him, as for air and sunlight. 

His exactness was wonderful. The tavern-keeper 
regularly set his clock by the time Mr. Gulliver walked 
by on his way to the AVednesday evening prayer-meet- 
ing, and’every watch in the village would have gone 
to the jeweller’s if he had begun the meeting five 
minutes late. He had a series of account-books in 
which was recorded every cent he had spent since he 
( 114 ) 


A HABIT OF EXACTNESS. 


115 


was five years old, with the date, the article, and the 
quantity purchased. Once at the sewing-circle, when 
a vigorous dispute arose as to whether it was in 1871 
or in 1872 that fashion required ladies’ dresses to be 
covered with buttons, he settled the question by show- 
ing from one of these little books that in 1872 Mrs. 
Gulliver’s dress-buttons cost him 15.92, as against 
11.96 and 12.42 in 1870 and 1871, and 11.34 and $2.05 
in 1873 and 1874. 

His memory was at once vast and minute. He not 
only answered all questions readily, but he answered 
them in detail. The only lines he ever quoted from 
Byron (and these never when young people were pres- 
ent) were : 

‘ ‘ I like to be particular in dates, 

Not only of the age and year, but moon. 

They are a kind of post-house, where the Fates 
Change horses, making History change its tune.” 

This habit alone gave him great power. It is amazing 
how much more it impresses a listener to tell him that 
Christopher Columbus discovered America on the 
12th day of October, 1492, at 2:05 A. M., than to tell 
him that the discovery of America occurred toward the 
close of the fifteenth century. Perhaps it was this ele- 
ment of his sermons which went farthest to make them 
seem profound, but they were characterized by other 
excellent features. He used simple language, short 
sentences, clear statements. A child could follow him ; 
yet when he closed he seemed to have exhausted the 
theme and to have left no opportunity to say or think 
anything more about it. 


116 


THE REV. OLLAPOD GULLIVER. 


It is therefore needless to say that his mind was 
narrow ; hut what there was of it he had under perfect 
control. It was his boast that in all his sermons he 
never rewrote a line or erased a letter. If called upon 
to speak upon a given subject at five minutes’ notice, 
his mind would instantly divide it into three heads, at 
the same time automatically suggesting a modest in- 
troduction and a feeling conclusion; and his speech 
would be so fitting and so complete that you would 
find it difficult to distinguish it from his elaborate ser- 
mons. 

Generally his discourses did not wander far from 
ordinary thought, hut he now and then brought in a 
rather pretty conceit, usually of scientific origin. For 
instance, the sermon he usually took with him to a 
strange pulpit dealt largely with astronomy. He gave 
to a furlong the distances of the sun and of Alpha 
Centauri, and the exact velocity of light. Then he 
showed that if a dweller on a starry world had vision 
to see this earth, he would see, not what was happen- 
ing now, but what happened yesterday, a year ago, a 
thousand years ago, according to the heavenly body on 
which he chanced to be located. But who knows there 
may not be, on all these stars, beings of so much greater 
powers than ours that their telescopes or even their 
unaided eyes can pierce through space and see every 
action of earth’s creatures ? On one star they may 
even now be gazing at the battle of Waterloo, and on 
another they may be watching with intense interest 
the temptation of Adam. A hundred thousand years 
from now the events of this day may just have been 
borne on the invisible ether to inhabitants of one of 


SERMONS THAT STOPPED WHEN THEY ENDED. 117 

the suns of Orion, who will see us rise, eat breakfast 
and whisper in church (this with a mildly reproachful 
glance toward a loving couple in the gallery). We 
talk of secret sins, but who knows how many millions 
of beings are watching every instant of every life-his- 
^ tory, so that among the countless stars a constantly 
V changing but ever-present multitude are now witness- 
ing and shall to all eternity blush over those shameful 
scenes which we suppose to be securely hidden ? 

At this point he had his audience breathless, each 
one looking back over his past, and wondering which 
star was just getting sight of some little delinquency 
of his own he had prided himself in concealing. 

After an impressive pause-, Mr. Gulliver would sud- 
denly electrify his audience; “Ah, my friends,” he 
sighed, “I see you tremble at the thought of your 
transgressions being witnessed by beings in other 
worlds, of whom you know nothing, and whom you 
may never meet. How then should you shiver when 
you remember that not only every secret sin but every 
secret thought is noted by a Being in a world you will 
shortly visit, and whom you must meet face to face, to 
receive the sentence on which hangs the awful fate of 
your eternal destiny.” 

And then he ‘stopped. 0 my clerical friends, he 
stopped. When •! recall that for ten years I listened 
to his two sermons weekly, and that in all the thous- 
ands there was not one in which he failed to stop when 
he got through, my heart throbs with gratitude, and 
my pen almost refuses to go on to describe the mis- 
fortunes and humiliation which overtook this saintly 


Commissioner Hume, H, 


118 


THE KEY. OLLAPOD GULLIVEK. 


man. Gentle reader, be patient with him. When 
you find him tripping (as you must, for his story is so 
interwoven with others I am trying to tell, that I can 
not omit it) — when, I say, you come to that scene in 
his life to which he looks back shuddering, and which 
you will gaze upon with indignation, remember, I beg 
of you, that against whatever flaws you may find in his 
character there stands out this bold and shining virtue : 
he never preached a sermon more than thirty minutes 
long. Pax eocum. 

Of course, Mr. Gulliver was a strictly moral man. 
Although a clergyman, he always paid his bills promptly 
and saw to it that his church did the like. He was 
frugal yet hospitable, prudently generous, chaste in 
conduct and thought. For this he owed much to tem- 
perament and circumstances. In educating himself, 
he had developed his mind at the expense of his body. 
In his college days wine and women had offered little 
temptation to a man living on baked potatoes and eat- 
ing the skins. So his absorbing purpose, firm princi- 
ples, and honest piety had flourished in a soil nearly 
free from weeds. He not only did no evil, but he 
thought no evil, of the kind that men call immoral. 
Temptations he had, with which he struggled sorely, 
and often vainly, but they were of another character, 
and mainly based on pride. 

For a man must gauge himself, more or less, by the 
opinions of others. The author whose books are never 
read must eventually distrust his genius. The clergy- 
man who lives a fourth of a century in an atmosphere 
of veneration must feel himself somewhat worthy of it. 
It was Mr. Gulliver’s constant effort not to think him- 


ABOUT MODEST MEK. 


119 


self worthy of it, but the effort was not wholly success- 
ful. Indeed, I fear the pride in which he sinned most 
was a hidden pride in his humility. 

For myself, I can’t help thinking that Mr. Gulliver 
was conceited ; and I am the surer of this because he^ 
always left behind him so marked an impression of 
humility. I feel as suspicious of a humble man as of 
a demure woman. Why should a man be humble ? 
Humility implies self-consciousness; and if a man he 
simple, earnest, direct, strong, his mind will he upon 
his work, riot upon himself, and will prompt him aa 
little to deprecate himself as to play the braggart. 

I believe the old adage is true, that talk about one- 
self lowers one in the estimate of the listener ; for if 
the talk be confession of weakness or fault the listener 
takes one’s word for it and rates one accordingly* 
while if it be a boast, the listener either refuses to be- 
lieve, or is more repelled by the assumption involved 
in telling it than attracted by the fact itself. The? 
only safe path for the self-conscious person is there- 
fore resolutely to avoid referring to himself at all. 
Alas, few have clear enough insight to see this, and 
strength enough of will to follow it. If a conceited 
person has any discernment, he learns after a time that 
boasting is fatal to good opinion, and he ceases to 
swagger. But he has cured only the eruption, and the 
disease, with increased intensity, still permeates every 
thought. The victim continues to talk about himself,, 
sometimes in disparagement, with a hungry hope that 
the listener will contradict him; sometimes in anec- 
dotes, seemingly modest because the main point is: 
some personal discomfiture, but incidently involving; 


120 


THE KEY. OLLAPOD GULLIVER. 


reference as a matter of course to the speaker’s noble 
qualities; oftenest, perhaps, in repeating flattering 
things which have been said of him by others, with a 
pretence of laughing at the others for being so fool- 
ishly deceived, but with an abiding hope that the 
listener will agree with them. 

The Eev. Ollapod Gulliver rarely employed these 
transparent subterfuges. He never needed to suggest 
himself as a topic of conversation, for his congregation 
provided him with as many feminine admirers as those 
marshalled by Cousin Hebe to echo Sir Joseph Porter, 
K.C.B. He could safely trust these courtiers to keep 
in the public mind all his virtues, all his talents, all 
his achievements; and it was his part to play King 
Canute, and assure them, in spite of their protests, 
that he was flnite. He did this very well. He had 
discernment, good taste. His flock always reserved 
ior the climax of his virtues, “ And oh! so modest ! ” 
But I distrust the modesty of a man who wears spec- 
tacles, and blushes. Mr. Gulliver did both. 

Mr. Gulliver’s learning and judgment made him the 
•educational authority of Constantinople. From time 
immemorial, he had been chairman of the board of 
Academy trustees, and he was the most frequent and 
respected visitor at the public school. In fact he came 
•often enough to impress his personality upon the 
pupils more than any of the transient teachers had ever 
.done. For instance, he had very thick lips, the broad 
red edges of which, as he wore no mustache, showed 
to especial advantage over his black beard. These lips 
seemed to the scholars the acme of masculine beauty, 
and discerning parents could^telHwhen^Mr. Gulliver 


AS A SCHOOL VTSITOK. 


121 


had visited the school in the morning by the way the 
hoys pursed out their lips at dinner. 

Clad in spotless linen and black that never seemed 
rusty, Mr. Gulliver used to sit erect in his chair, and 
question the class with paternal serenity. That he 
could make a mistake, that there could be a develop- 
ment of the subject which he had not fathomed, never 
occurred to pupil or teacher or parent. If by any 
chance he had done a problem in arithmetic contrary to 
the principles of the science, I presume all would have 
agreed that the science was at fault, and that Mr. Gulli- 
ver had as much right to reverse a rule of mathematics, 
as Joshua to make the sun stand still. 

With malice prepense, Jerry Slack invited Mr. 
Gulliver to visit his school for the especial purpose of 
taking the conceit out of Gottlieb Krottenthaler. He 
explained to Mr. Gulliver that Gottlieb had rapidly 
picked up that little knowledge which is so dangerous, 
and that he was arrogant, presumptuous, overwise. I 
think he even hinted that Gottlieb was atheistic in his 
German tendencies, and would exert a harmful influ- 
ence over the other scholars, unless Mr. Gulliver should 
detect and expose his shallowness. 

Accordingly Mr. Gulliver devoted a whole half day 
to examining the classes in which Gottlieb recited. I 
regret to say that it was the most uncomfortable half- 
day Mr. Gulliver had ever spent. He had the usual 
conventional knowledge of common-school studies, 
but had never given much thought to principles un- 
derlying the facts and rules and processes. Gottlieb 
seemed to have approached all these subjects from an 
original starting point, and he had happened upon 


122 


THE REV. OLLAPOD GULLIVER. . 


puzzling little exceptions to general rules which gave 
Mr. Gulliver great uneasiness. 

In the spelling-class Gottlieb had remarked : 

“ I like not dees languich, mit so many wort nopody 
can shpell, not nefer.” 

Mr. Gulliver, whose strongest point was an ability 
to spell all sorts of unheard-of words, smiled be- 
nignantly. 

“ My dear young friend,” he said, “ English spell- 
ing is by no means so difficult as it is commonly 
thought to be. It requires close observation, accurate 
memory: that is all. No educated man should ever 
fail to spell a word corrctly.” 

“ Ach! ” sighed Gottlieb, reflecting, “ put I tink of 
vde wort dot nopody can shpell — not efen de dictionary. ” 

Mr. Gulliver smiled again with patient charity. 

You are thinking of inarticulate sounds, I suppose, 
like that of a kiss, which we can hear and make, but 
which we cannot spell out with letters. There is no 
ispoken word which we cannot spell.” 

“ Vill you parton me eef I geef you a wort, weech I 
tink can nicht pe spell.” 

“ Certainly. If you will put me such a word, I will 
give you a new copy of Webster’s Unabridged.” 

“ Goot,” said Gottlieb, “ I ask two or dree ting first 
‘ You pe going next Sontag to church; ’ shpell to.” 
“T-o,to.” 

‘ I pe going, too;’ shpell too.” ' 

T-double-o, too.” ;;; 

‘ Ve two pe going; ’ shpell to.” '2 

T-w-o, two.'*'' ' 


MR. GULLIVER PUZZLED. 


123 


(to ) 

you have shpell tree ] too Ps ”* 
(two ) 

“Yes.” 


“ In de sentence, ‘ You haf shpell 
to "I to ^ 

tree too ’s,’ shpell too >- ’s.” 
two J two 3 

After a moment’s study, Mr. Gulliver, to the amaze- 
ment of the school, confessed himself caught, and con- 
gratulated Gottlieb warmly upon his discovery of this 
serious defect. in the orthography of any language 
which has tautophonous words of different spelling. 
Having by this large word partially restored his stand- 
ing with the school, he continued his examination only 
to encounter more trouble. 

“ Define multiplication,” he said to Gottlieb, in the 
arithmetic class. 

“ I can nicht.” 

“ That is unfortunate,” said Mr. Gulliver, somewhat 
surprised, because up to this point Gottlieb had recited 
readily. “ Definitions lie at the foundation of all true 
knowledge. Try and fix them firmly in mind. Now 
repeat after me : ‘ Multiplication is the process of tak- 
ing one thing as many times as there are units in 
another.’ ” 

“ 0, I know dat defineetion,” said Gottlieb, “ dat 
ees in de pook. Put I tink he ees not true.” 

“ How is that ? ” asked Mr. Gulliver. 

“ I take my pook once,” said Gottlieb, lifting his 


* Of course the cc«npo8itor is as much at loss as Mr. Gulliver was. A 
word which cannot be spelled cannot be printed. 


124 


THE KEV. OLLAPOD GULLIVEK. 


arithmetic; “ I take my pook twice, (lifting it-again,) 
I take my pook tree time, (lifting it once more). Xow 
how many pook haf I ? Shust one, und de rule make 
him tree.” 

Mr. Gulliver smiled with restored superiority. 

“Your illustration . has a fatal defect,” he said. 
“ The rule refers to numbers, and has nothing to do* 
with books. A hook is not a number.” 

“ Dot pe fooney,” repied Gottlieb, opening his arith- 
metic to the first page; “ dees pook say a noomper pe 
either apstrack or concrete ; und dat a concrete noom- 
per pe de noomper apply to some opjeck, like von pook, 
two apple, fife pear.” 

“ I shall have to think about that,” said Mr. Gulli- 
ver, and the scholars were more amazed than ever. 
Presently the rule for compound subtraction was called 
for, and Gottlieb said it was imperfect, since it would 
not solve all problems. 

This time Mr. Gulliver was cautious, and treated 
Gottlieb’s opinion with manifest respect. Asked to 
illustrate his criticism, Gottlieb placed the following 
example on the board : 

m. fur. rd. yd. ft. in. 

1 0 0 0 0 0 

7 39 5 1 5 . 

Although the subtrahend was the smaller number, no 
one could solve the problem under the rule given in 
the book ; and when Gottlieb made three or four more 
such criticisms, and in every case was found to be 
right, Jerry Slack, as well as the scholars, began to 
look upon him with almost superstitious awe. 


HE BECAME CADWALLADER’S FRIEND. 125 

Perhaps the greatest surprise was in geography, 
though the principle should have been familiar enough. 
Mr. Gulliver had been asking the pupils to face north, 
and point in the direction of various places. Gottlieb 
was asked to point to Jerusalem, and he pointed nearly 
north-east. At this everybody laughed, and it was 
not until'a battered globe had been fished out of the 
attic and a string drawn between the two places, that 
Mr. Gulliver would acknowledge that Gottlieb was 
right. Xot even by his generalized remarks upon 
great-circles and parallels of latitude could the clergy- 
man recover his lost ground with the pupils. He was 
stiirto them a great man and a good man, but he was 
no longer omniscient. 

To the credit of the Eev. Ollapod Gulliver be it said, 
that so far from bearing any small resentment against 
Gottlieb for these revelations, he commended him to 
the school as a rare scholar who thought for himself, 
thanked* him for calling his attention to these excep- 
tions to rules usually supposed to be universal, and in- 
vited Gottlieb most heartily to study with him two 
nights every week, so long as he should stay in the 
village. 

This invitation Gottlieb accepted, and before long 
Mr. Gulliver began to wonder which of them was gain- 
ing the more from their interviews. 


4 


CHAPTER IX. 

MRS. ARABELLA . 

It has been mentioned that Mr. ‘Gulliver was chair- 
man of the Academy trustees. For several years Con- 
stantinople Academy had been dormant. It was 
founded soon after the Alps Collegiate Institute, and 
for a period enjoyed fair local patronage. But the N. 
Y. C. & B. S. R. R., had made Picayuna accessible to 
all this region, and Picayuna had a State Normal 
School which admitted pupils who would express the 
slightest intention of teaching to full academic instruc- 
tion, without paying tuition. This institution had a 
noble building, ample apparatus, and a corps of teach- 
ers carefully chosen and liberally paid. The course 
was thorough and the examinations were rigid, but 
great ado was made at commencement, and graduates 
were in demand. Boys and girls in this region who 
had time and money to spend for an academic educa- 
tion turned their faces toward Picayuna, and Constan- 
tinople Academy grew mouldy. It was managed for a 
few years by young graduates who came here because 
they could get no other position, but after a time not 
even such an one could be found, and the academy 
existed only in a decaying building, a name in the Re- 
gents’ Report, and an annual meeting of the board of 
trustees. 


( 126 ) 


ACADEMY PEIi^CIPALS. 


127 


Such a building frequently falls into the hands of 
some woman, who keeps what is called an academy, 
but what is really a private school for small children. 
Several such propositions had been made to these trus- 
tees, but had been invariably opposed by Mr. Gulliver. 

“ This school was conceived, founded, endowed, 

■ built up, solely for secondary education, based on in- 
struction in Latin, Greek and mathematics,” he would 
say. “ Only a graduate of some reputable male col- 
lege shall ever assume charge of it with my consent.” 

Mr. Gulliver had been led to insist upon “ a reputa- 
ble male college,” because a graduate from Vassar had 
'Once applied for the position, and had won the hearts 
and minds of all the rest of the board of trustees. But 
Mr. Gulliver stood firm. He had read somewhere that 
the girls at Vassar were so hungry for flirting that 
they fell in love with each other, and made such ex- 
travagant presents as proofs of their afiection that the 

■ college authorities had to interfere. He inquired of 
the applicant whether this were true, and when she 
‘did not wholly deny it, he demanded triumphantly 
whether that was the sort of four-years’ training to fit 
'&> young woman to be principal of an academy. Her 
magnificent scholarship, her high testimonials and her 
winning appearance were not sufficient defence against 
this attack, and the board voted to reject 'her applica- 
tion. 

Mr. Gulliver did not believe in women-teachers. 
He often lamented that they had ever got a foot-hold 
in any but primary departments. 

“ Look all over Europe,” he would say, “ and you 
will seek in vain for schools in charge of women. The 


128 


MBS. ARABELLA 


poorest, weakest country school has a man for a per-- 
manent teacher, known to the country around as the 
school-master, and exerting an influence over every child 
in the neighborhood. Our country schools and most 
of our city schools are taught by green girls, who have 
no taste or aptitude for teaching, but clutch the work 
as a buoy to keep them afloat till they can signal a 
husband. Those who fail to get married, usually 
because they are too homely or too disagreeable to find 
anybody who wants them, become dried-up bundles of 
shattered nerves, utterly unfit to deal with the fresh- 
ness of childhood. Even the exceptions, the noble, 
whole-hearted women whom one encounters here and 
there in the profession, are still but women. They 
are kind-hearted, but always partial; conscientious in 
little things, but never able to grasp a grand principle ; 
accurate scholars in special subjects, but wholly unable 
to comprehend a system of knowledge in which each 
subject has its relative importance. To put girls, and 
especially hoys, under such a teacher, is to narrow their 
minds to certain grooves of thought. Woman some- 
times shows intensity, but only man has breadth of 
vision. Woman spies the minutest particles of dust, 
hut Man surveys the Universe.” 

The reader will infer that Mr. Gulliver had not a 
very high opinion of women. To tell the truth, he 
hadn’t, though he supposed he had. He was unusually 
staunch in the stalwart oak and clinging vine theory, 
and often talked prettily of the mission of women to 
grace and adorn. He believed some women had a 
knack of wheedling favors out of weak-minded men,, 
and of thus exerting a sort of surreptitious influence.- 


PRISCILLA PLUMB 


129 


But that a woman could herself do anything of any 
particular importance, or that she could so impress a 
real man that he should value her approving glance 
above all other rewards, was to Mr. Gulliver mere non- 
sense. Certainly he had never seen any woman of that 
kind, and he never expected to. 

To be sure, he was a married man, but his marriage 
had been as carefully planned and carried out in as 
cool blood as all the other acts of his life. 

During his early years at Constantinople he had been 
attracted by a little girl named Priscilla Plumb. Her 
father kept the village store, and was a church trustee. 
Her mother was a sentimentalist in religion, who relied 
as much on having the clergyman to tea every week' as 
■other weak-minded women do on periodical consulta- 
tion with the family ^doctor. At these frequent visits 
Mr. Gulliver observed that Priscilla was healthy, hand- 
some, bright, modest, good-tempered — by far the most 
promising girl in the village. Before she was fourteen, 
he had said to himself: “ She will be the kind of 
woman I want to marry.” When she was fifteen, he 
said so to her parents, and thereafter he was allowed to 
■direct her education. She spent four years of the 
next five at Mt. Holyoke. These were for character. 
The fifth she spent in a fashionable Hew York board- 
ing-school. This was for style. Thirty days after her 
style had been certificated at commencement, she be- 
■came Mrs. Gulliver. 

Was she a willing bride ? 

I don’t know. During all her school years away 
from home this destiny had been the ground-work of 
her labors. She had striven hard to prepare herself 


130 


MRS. ARABELLA 


for a model minister’s wife. She had received weekly 
letters of affection and counsel from Mr. Gulliver. All 
Constantinople had looked upon her with envy. Xa 
young man had so much as presumed to think of win- 
ning her. Her mother, a really good woman and ten^ 
derly devoted to her, had died happy in the assurance 
that her daughter was to be Mrs. Gulliver. Her 
father had put up for them the prettiest house in the 
village, and assured her with tears in his eyes that 
when he was told of Mr. Gulliver’s intentions he felt 
that he had not lived in vain. What more could Pris- 
cilla ask ? 

I don’t know that she asked for anything more. 
Certainly she was a charming bride and a dutiful wife. 
She had a great deal of hospitality to dispense, but she 
always made her guests delighte^. She belonged to 
constant committees, but her work in each was well 
done. The demands on her time were innumerable, 
but she and her house were ever fresh, bright and at- 
tractive. She was never bored and she was never awed. 
Young and old, rich and poor, big and little, all found 
her sympathetic, intelligent. Judicious. Of course the 
glory fell to Mr. Gulliver, who had educated her and 
who still made himself her constant guide in every de- 
tail of life. But her friends admitted that she was an 
apt and creditable pupil; and to be an apt pupil of the 
Kev. Ollapod Gulliver was indeed a distinction. 

All this Mr. Gulliver appreciated. He had taken 
his time to marry — his age on their wedding-day was 
just double hers — but he had done it, as he did every- 
thing, well. He had chosen deliberately, and he had 
chosen successfully. He had trained her on certain 


A MODEL HUSBAKD. 


131 


fixed principles, and he had trained her well. He had 
secured a wife who was fit to shine in any circle, and 
who would devote her life to him and his work. Like 
his study -lamp, and his movable book-cases, Mrs. Gulli- 
ver was eminently fitted to fill the place for which he 
designed her. 

It never occured to him that though she was twenty- 
five years old he still thought of her and treated her 
as a child. He had been so many years a bachelor, 
that he had grown accustomed to be his own house- 
keeper. He knew how much tea and sugar should be 
used every week, and that the dinner scraps could all 
be made useful. Though he nominally entrusted 
these things to Mrs. Gulliver, he still looked after 
them himself, and he left very little for her to devise. 
He often had her read to him or copy for him; he 
sometimes read over his sermons to her; in rare in- 
stances he asked her opinion as to a radical view or a 
bold expression. But he never thought of valuing her 
opinion particularly, or of relying upon her judgment. 
He never interchanged with her his best and freshest 
thoughts, as he was glad to do with his brother clergy- 
men. Even Gottlieb Krottenthaler, whose broad ex- 
perience and good sense made a favorable impression 
on Mr. Gulliver, was soon received on confidential 
terms of intellectual equality which Mr. Gulliver 
never dreamed of according to his wife. 

One evening Mr. Gulliver was discussing with Gott- 
lieb the general question of woman’s society. He had 
lately returned from a meeting of the Presbytery, and 
was ridiculing some of his brother clergymen who 
found pleasant women at the boarding-places given 


132 


MRS. ARABELLA 


them, and preferred to spend their time dawdling in 
parlors rather than in attending the sessions or arguing 
with their professional brethren. 

“ Why, I know ministers,” said Mr. Gulliver, “ who 
will never stir from home without their wives. They 
can’t preach unless their wives are in the congregation. 
Give them a new idea, and they say : ‘ I must go home 
and talk that over with my wife ; ’ and if they make a 
great effort, they are breathless till they get to their 
wives and ask : ‘ Well, dear, how did you think I 
succeeded ? ’ 

“ The funny part of it is,” continued Mr. Gulliver, 
chuckling, ‘ ‘ that they never seem to discover that this 
getting your wife’s opinion is simply comparing your 
own face with the reflection of your face in the look- 
ing glass. A good wife thinks as her husband thinks. 
Put two clocks on the mantel-piece, and very soon the 
vibrations of the smaller pendulum will be coincident 
with those of the larger. So the wife’s thoughts, in 
true marriage [and Mr. Gulliver paused a moment to 
think complacently of his own], soon come to pulsate 
with the husband’s ; and when he feels gratifled to 
find her agreeing with him he is simply thinking well 
of himself — a very dangerous form of self-conceit.” 

Mr. Gulliver was fond of antithesis and paradox, 
and he exulted to have hit upon so happy an expression 
of that last notion. So he went on to elaborate his 
views. 

“ The fact is, Gottlieb,” he said, “ woman’s society 
is like confectionery. A little of it is well enough, 
after a hearty repast upon stalwart masculine thought, 
but only a sickly sentimentalist can live upon it. Too 


MR. GULLIVER UNDERSTOOD WOMEN. 


133 


much of it corrupts the taste, and takes away appetite 
for strength and truth. If you would be a powerful 
and sterling man, Gottlieb, make your friends among 
powerful and sterling men ; and never leave their soci- 
ety to play croquet or handy compliments with a young 
girl whose hair is done up in curl-papers. The knights 
of old gave only their spare time to their fair ladies. 
True chivalry puts work before amusement.” 

“ Put, Meester Kulliver,” interposed Gottlieb, “ de 
inspiration to pe a strong und treu man comes not to 
me from oder men so mooch as from de treu und 
earnest voman. De knight of old left his lady, put it 
vas to do her peeding, for no reward put her approfal. 
Eet vas nicht to holt a pheelosophical argument dot 
Leander sweem ofer de Hellespont.” 

“ But people don’t do that now-a-days,” protested 
Mr. Gulliver, thinking it best to change the illustration. 

“ I tink dey do. For me, I nefer see eine gute 
voman put I pe ein petter und ein shtronker man. 
You hear of dot lady dot somepoty say ‘ To know her 
pe a leeperal education.’ I haf see such voman. De 
grand man make you eemitate, put ein gut way off ; 
perhaps he discourich. Put de grand voman, she 
eenspire everypoty to do de pest in him.” 

“You are an enthusiast,” said Mr. Gulliver, willing 
to indulge Gottlieb’s hallucination; “ you would make 
a capital lover.” 

“Oh! put dot pe someting else,” sighed Gottlieb, 
his eyes lighting up with tender earnestness, and seem- 
ing, as he spoke, to look upon a picture far away. 
“ Yen of all de voman in de vorlt, de pest und de 

Commiasioner Hume, I. 


134 


MKS. AKABELLA 


visest und de sweetest und de truest pe all your own, 
dot is life! You vake oop happy in de morning, for 
you tink ‘ Vot ein gut vorlt pe dees, for She pe een it.’ 
You vork hart all tay, for you tink, ‘ Dees pe for Her, 
too.’ You pe no hurry to shleep at night, for you 
tink apout Her. You pe nefer lonely, for ven your 
mint pe let loose from oder ting, he fly pack to Her. 
Eef you fail in someting, you pe not discourich, for 
you tink, ‘ She pelief in me ; I vill pelief in myself. ’ 
Eef you pe misunderstand, or pad treat, you no mint, 
for you tink, ‘Vot of dees, ven She lofe me ? ’ Haf 
you nefer feel dees ? ” 

“ I can’t say that I have,” replied Mr. Gulliver, 
drily, “ and as I am forty-flve years old, it is reason- 
able to suppose that I never shall.” 

At this moment the door opened, and Mrs. Gulliver 
informed her husband that a lady, some stranger, had 
called to see him on business. Gottlieb took his de- 
parture, and Mr. Gulliver asked his wife to invite the 
caller into his study. 

She was a flne-looking woman, with too square a 
face and too coarse a complexion to be handsome, but 
well-formed, well-dressed, and well-bred. 

“You will excuse me for coming directly here from 
the Lippitburgh depot. Dr. Gulliver?” she begged, 
gracefully completing the apology by a half-timid 
courtesy. She had accented the word in the last 
syllable, and she added: “ Or do you say d4pot about 
here ? ” 

“We usually say d4pot,” answered Dr. Gulliver 
rather awkwardly, not understanding this abrupt in- 
troduction. 


A NEW SPECIES OE WOMAN. 


135 


“ The word has five letters and five pronunciations,” 
continued the stranger, fluently ; ‘ ‘ one can hardly go 
astray. But on these uncertain syllables people are so 
apt to be dogmatic. 

“ I once spent an hour in a school in Norwich, 
listening to a class in reading. It did not seem to me 
well taught, and as I wanted to say something com- 
plimentary which should at the same time be truthful,, 
I could think of nothing to commend except the pro- 
nunciation. I called the word pronunsiation. The 
teacher at once replied with dignified emphasis: ‘ Yes,, 
we are very particular about that. We teach our 
scholars among their first corrections to say pronunshia- 
tion, and not pronunsiation.'^ I accepted the reproof 
humbly, and forebore to inform her that Perry and 
Knowles and Smart and Cooley and Cull all preferred 
‘ pronunsiation,’ while Dr. Haldemann ridicules any 
other sound of the a, saying that the c can get the sh 
sound only by its association with the 2, and that there- 
fore the only consistent authority is Sheridan, who 
pronunces the word, pronunshation. 

“ But for my part, especially in these days of differ- 
ing authorities, I think the only unpardonable error 
one can commit in pronunciation is dogmatically to 
correct the pronunciation of some one else. Wasn’t 
it Mr. Breckenridge who presided over the Senate at 
the time when one of the senators from Arkansas al- 
ways so called his State, while the other as invariably 
called it Arkansaw ? You know he always announced 
these gentlemen each according to his own preference, 
never failing to speak of the first as ‘ The gentleman 
from Arkansas,’ and of the second as ‘ The gentleman 


130 


MRS. ARABELLA 


from Arkansaw.’ It seems to me that was the true 
conduct of a scholar and a gentleman. Don’t you 
think so, Dr. Gulliver ? ” 

Why, certainly, I should agree with you much 
better in that opinion than as to your mode of address- 
ing me,” replied the clergyman, who had begun to 
wonder whether his visitor would ever give him a 
•chance to speak again ; “ I am plain Mr. Gulliver. ’ ’ 

“ Why how is that ? ” queried the lady, mystified. 
“‘At one of the public receptions of Sorosis I over- 
heard Prof. Harkness talking with Mrs. Croly about 
you, and saying it was decided to give you D.D. at the 
next commencement. I remember it because it was 
the first time I had heard your name mentioned. It 
happened to come up because Dr. Holland quoted your 
sermon on ‘ The Bible in the Public Schools ’ as the 
best argument which had appeared. I was thinking 
it was at the June reception, but it must have been in 
September and referring to commencement this year. 
But at worst I only anticipate, for Prof. Harkness 
.said the degree was certainly to be given you.” 

Mr. Gulliver was gratified. Though he had never 
mentioned it, he had felt that he deserved this recog- 
nition from his Alma Mater, at least as much as some 
who had received it. To be sure he was pastor of a 
•country church, but he had written a score of articles 
for the Examiner, and two long papers for the Quarterly, 
besides several published sermons ; and he had been a 
faithful alumnus, both in attending commencements 
and in directing young students to Brown University 
instead of Yale or Harvard. . Yes, he deserved to be 


ME. GULLIVEE IS FLATTERED. 137 

D.D., and now he was going to he. He felt very- 
kindly disposed toward his well-informed visitor who 
had brought the announcement. 

In the midst of a half-revery based upon “ Rev. 
Ollapod Gulliver, D.D.,” that gentleman became con- 
scious that his visitor was already deep in another 
subject. 

“ I believe in higher — indeed, in the highest — edu- 
cation of women,” she was saying, “ and I have never 
heard mentioned what seems to me the strongest argu- 
ment in its favor : I mean its protection of woman’s 
chastity.” 

Mr. Gulliver’s rigid sense of propriety was shocked 
to hear that word from a lady’s lips, but his visitor 
looked him straight in the eye, and continued, with- 
out a thought of blanching: 

“ I think it is a mistake to assume that mutual at- 
traction between the sexes is based on a physical rela- 
tion. So far as we are animal, we partake of animal 
instincts, but so far as we are higher than the brute, 
so far higher is the enjoyment we may experience. 

“ IS’ow men’s and women’s minds are as surely co- 
related as their bodies, and intercourse between their 
minds affords a higher and more permanent pleasure. 
Indeed the only physical intercourse which should ever 
occur — that based upon love — derives its keenest delight 
from the sensations of mind and heart which prompt 
it, and of which it is only the seal. 

“ Xow why is it that young people are under tempta- 
tion, when thrown together ? I do not believe it is 
because young men and young women are usually cor- 
rupt in thought and desire, and I know that what is 


138 


MRS. ARABELLA 


called seduction frequently occurs when both parties 
are innocent of wrong intention. 

“ I explain it in this way. When the two are thrown 
in each other’s company, they begin with conversation. 
For a time this interests them both, but presently the 
young woman’s resources are exhausted. She has not 
read as much, seen as much, thought as much as her 
admirer, and she is soon in shallow water. He begins 
to feel bored, and she knows it. Not having his mind 
otherwise employed, he is prompted to take certain 
liberties with her person, at first seemingly slight and 
harmless, and yet in a certain indefinite way recognized 
by both of them as liberties. As such she would gladly 
repel them. Her maiden instinct recoils; but usually, 
and very unfortunately, this instinct is unsupported 
by careful instruction, and she fears that if she re- 
pulses him she can no longer command hi^ attention. 
Accordingly she yields, simply because she has no 
other way to interest him, and so, step by step, with- 
out forethought or wicked purpose on the part of 
either, she falls into his unholy embrace. 

“ Don’t you believe it frequently happens in that 
way, Mr. Gulliver ? ” 

“ I-I presume so,” he assented, feebly. 

“Now what is the remedy for this evil, which honey- 
combs our very best society with danger ? Simply to 
make woman the intellectual equal of man. Give our 
girls advantages for education, not necessarily the same, 
but equal to those afforded their brothers. Let them 
learn, not from books alone, but, as their brothers do, 
from society, travel, intercourse with many minds. 
Above all, teach them to be independent, self-reliant. 


MR. GULLIVER IS FASCII^ATED. 139 

keen-witted. Sueh a girl will keep her admirer so em- 
ployed in sustaining his own part of the conversation 
that he will have no occasion for lustful thoughts. 
It is a stigma upon a woman’s mind,” concluded the 
lady, impetuously, “ if she lets her listener’s attention 
wander to her person.” 

Mr. Gulliver was relieved to have her end so harm- 
lessly — indeed, so sensibly. It was a new and startling 
experience to hear a lady, a stranger to him, discuss a 
subject like this so freely. But certainly she discussed 
it ably and pure-mindedly. So Mr. Gulliver thought 
she deserved that he should say : 

“ Surely no such stigma can ever be cast upon your 
mind. Madam.” 

Why was it that^he was prompted to add: 

“ But if your listener’s mind should wander in that 
way, it would have a pleasing subject to contemplate.” 

That was evidently a suggestion of Satan. Mr. Gul- 
liver observed it as a puzzling psychological phenome- 
non, and laid his observations aside for future contem- 
plation. 

Finding him responsive, his well-informed visitor 
continued her flow of talk, soon drawing him out to 
express an interest in what she was saying, and then 
skilfully directing him to take the leading part in the 
conversation, while she sat at his feet, a willing 
listener. She was so quick to understand his mean- 
ing, so ready to illustrate his points by experience of 
her own (always among the most distinguished people), 
and, though evidently a woman of rare attainments, 
so deferent to his views and so delightful a listener 
that the Rev. Ollapod Gulliver found himself for the 


140 


MBS. AKABELLA 


first time fully appreciated. He talked with an earn- 
estness and facility which were almost inspiration, and 
he was startled when at ten o’clock his caller sighed: 

“0, Mr. Gulliver, I could listen to you forever, but 
I must not forget that I came on business.” 

Sure enough, he hadn’t yet found out why she had 
come to him, or even her name; what a fascinating 
woman she was to so make him forget the ordinary 
proprieties of life. 

“ To be wholly frank with you, Mr. Gulliver, — for 
if I were not so by nature I should be from policy with 
a gentleman of your discernment, — I want to be prin- 
cipal of your academy. I know the position you have 
taken as to women teachers, and I honor you for 
standing true to Latin and Greek in these days of loose 
scholarship. But I believe in Latin and Greek, too, 
and it seemed to me that under your direction and by 
your assistance I could build up a school which should 
be an honor to the village and a blessing to the neigh- 
borhood.” 

Mr. Gulliver protested for a while, but he protested 
feebly. The fact was, however unconscious he may 
have been, that he felt it would be a personal advant- 
age to have this glorious woman near by. The exhil- 
aration of the evening’s conversation had been almost 
intoxicating. He had never before so realized and so 
made use of his mental resources. What sermons he 
could write if he could first discuss the text with such 
a mind as hers. He began to envy Pericles and to 
look with charity upon Aspasia. At any rate, he 
finally promised that the academy should be reopened. 
He would call a meeting of the trustees at once. 


A NOK-SEQUITUK. 


141 


By the way, what name should he present to them ? 

His visitor leaned forward, resting her face upon 
both hands, and looked at him intently, questioningly, 
then trustingly : 

“ I will put full confidence in you,” she burst forth; 
“ I can’t tell you my name.” 

This was a non-sequitur for which Mr. Gulliver was 
not prepared. But she explained that she was a mar- 
ried woman — unhappily married; in fact, persecuted. 
If her real name was known, her husband would seek 
her out even here, and annoy, terrify, perhaps (and 
she shuddered convulsively) even beat her. She must 
assume a name not her own, but she felt that she 
could not deceive Mr. Gulliver. So she wrote on a 
card “ Mrs. Arabella .” 

“ That much is mine,” she said; — “you shall fill 
the blank as you choose. Unhappy is the woman who 
takes upon her at the altar a name she cannot safely 
bear.” 

Mr. Gulliver was touched with sympathy, and with 
gratitude for her confidence. 

“ Let us fill the dash as we do in reading,” he said, 
“ and call you Mrs. Arabella Blank. We can spell it 
B-l-a-n-c, if you choose.” 

“ That is just what I should have wished,” she ex- 
claimed with enthusiasm. “You seem to have such 
an instinct for choosing - the right thing. I can not 
bear to deceive, even in little things, and this is really 
within a letter of the truth.” 

Of course this was sophistry, but it was charmingly and 
rather coquettishly said. So Mr. Gulliver summoned 
his wife, who had wondered why the woman staid so 


142 


MRS. ARABELLA 


long, and who inspected Mrs. Arabella Blanc rather 
keenly. When she was introduced by her husband as 
her guest, for Mr. Gulliver insisted that she should 
remain all night, Mrs. Gulliver treated her politely; 
hut when her husband told her presently that Mrs. 
Blanc was to be principal of the academy, Mrs. Gulli- 
ver opened her eyes and inquired : 

“ Pray who is she, and where does she come from, 
and what has she done, that you grant her what you 
refused that pretty Miss Edwards from Vassar ? ” 

In spite of himself, Mr. Gulliver had to admit that 
he didn’t know, and he slept uncomfortably. But 
the first glance from Mrs. Blanc’s eyes reassured him 
the next morning, and when he held her hand a 
moment, as he greeted her, he felt that he had made 
no mistake. It was a pretty hand, and soft and 
trustful. 


CHAPTER X. 


MR. GULLIVER WRITES POETRY. 

The resurrection of Constantinople Academy was 
loudly heralded. Mr. -Gulliver’s enterprise and Mrs. 
Blanc’s ingenuity devised many forms of advertising, 
and every family within twenty miles knew that Mr. 
Gulliver had reopened the Academy. That was all 
they knew. Mrs. Blanc had insisted that all announce- 
ments should be made in his name, and with reference 
•only to a “ competent corps of instructors.” He had 
promised to hear one or two classes himself in college 
preparatory classes, and he looked forward with some 
anticipation to sending to Brown a hoy or two of his 
•own fitting. 

The Academy opened with twenty-seven scholars, 
and within a week drew in a dozen more. Polly 
Granger and three or four friends of her own age de- 
•cided to take another year of study. Gottlieb Krot- 
tenthaler, who declined to leave the district school, 
was induced by Mr. Gulliver to begin Latin under Mrs. 
Blanc’s instruction. Altogether, the trustees con- 
gratulated themselves on their good fortune, and felt 
hopeful of the Academy’s future. 

Mrs. Blanc was a fascinating teacher. Her classes 
longed for the recitation hour, and a bevy of girls al- 
ways surrounded her. She was too loquacious to be a 
( 143 ) 


144 


ME. GULLIVEK WKITES POETKY. 


good instructor, and she asked very little more of her' 
scholars than to be eager listeners. But she had many 
things to tell about every topic of the day’s lesson, 
and she knew how to tell them interestingly. Her 
anecdotes and illustrations were always apt, and often 
impressive. The scholars came home delighted, and 
repeated much of what they had heard. This pleased 
the parents,, and all united to bless the day that Mrs. 
Blanc came to Constantinople. 

Mr. Gulliver found his classes exceedingly interest- 
ing. He was glad to go early to the Academy, and he 
often staid an hour or two after his own work was 
done. Mrs. Blanc boarded at the hotel, and he 
thought it necessary to go there often for consultation 
as to the interests of the school. He encouraged her 
to come to his study. At first, his room seemed to 
brighten when she entered. Presently it began to 
seem dark when she was absent. Mr. Gulliver grew 
restless. He was happy only when . he was with Mrs. 
Blanc, and he' spent the rest of the time in pondering 
over what she had said a’t their last interview, and what 
he would say at their next. 

For a time he was unconscious of this magnetic at- 
traction. After he discovered it, he puzzled over it 
awhile before he understood it. At last he got the 
clue. The revelation struck him like a thunder-clap.. 

“ I am in love,” he said to himself, and as he said 
it he blushed— the Rev. Ollapod Gulliver blushed, and 
blushed guiltily. 

I don’t know whether he was more shocked or 
gratified. He was unquestionably shocked. That he,, 
of all men in the world, should be in love with a^ 


A COi^TEST WITH APOLLYOH. 


145 


'Woman not his wife, seemed to him like standing on 
the brink of total depravity; and yet he could not 
help hugging himself for being capable of this enormity. 

He was not insensible to his defects, this model 
clergyman ; and he had often mused with a regretful 
longing over the pictures of passionate love the poets 
write about. He could not doubt that there was such 
a thing, and that it was entirely different from the 
calm, patronizing affection he bestowed on Mrs. Gulli- 
ver. He had thought himself incapable of the feeling, 
as some men are born color-blind; and he had recog- 
nized the deficiency as a serious misfortune. He wanted 
to be integer vitae in full sense of the phrase; enjoying 
all that true men may enjoy, and suffering all that 
true men should • suffer. Hitherto he had supposed 
that his life could never he lit by such love. Though 
he now felt that the light might bring uncomfortable 
heat, yet he was glad to take the risk for the sake of 
the experience. 

The risk. Yes, there was a risk; a risk that he, the 
Rev. Ollapod Gulliver, would be untrue to his manhood, 
his cloth and his religion. He recognized the danger, 
and he armed himself to meet it. He even made ges- 
tures, as of brandishing imaginary sword and shield, 
and he cried out in, audible voice: 

“ Apollyon, I see thee and I defy thee.” 

He meant well, but I suspect he was too confident 
in his own strength. He should have extirpated the 
feeling. Instead, he nourished it, intending to master 
it, and anticipating a struggle not wholly unenjoyable. 
He immediately laid out his campaign, as he would 
Jhave sketched an outline for his sermon. 


146 


MR. GULLIVER WRITES POETRY. 


“ The main danger,” he said to himself, “ is con- 
cealment. The temptation is strong, but I will resist 
it. I will be frank and open from the start. I will go 
and tell her all about it, this minute.” 

It never occurred to him that the “ her ” he ought 
to tell was Mrs. Gulliver. He put on his hat, and 
walked rapidly to Mrs. Blanc’s room. She was busy 
arranging her book-shelves. He seated himself in a 
corner of the room, and watched her deft fingers a few 
moments. 

“ Arabella,” he said, presently, (he had excused 
himself for this familiarity on the ground that it was 
the only part of her name he knew), “ Arabella, it is 
pleasant for me to be with you.” 

Mrs. Blanc smiled cheerfully. She was a kind- 
hearted creature, thoroughly good-natured, and per- 
haps of all women in the world the fondest of ad- 
miration., 

“ I was just wondering whether you wouldn’t come 
over,” she said; “ I have learned to be so happy in 
your company that I begin to long for it.” 

Mr. Gulliver was startled. Could it be true that she 
was unconsciously in love with him ? This doubled 
the risk. It was characteristic of Mr. Gulliver’s mind 
that as this last thought occurred to him, he dropped 
into a formula, and wondered if the risk didn’t vary 
as the square of the number of component parties, 
and was not quadrupled. But he was very glad he 
had had the conscience and the courage to be frank, 
for he might save her from harm, as well as himself; 
so he said significantly : 


A PLAN OF ACTION. 


147 


“ Has it occurred to you, Arabella, that there is in 
this mutual attraction an element of danger ? ” 

She gave him a quick, keen glance ; then she covered 
her face with her hands. 

“ 0 Mr. Gulliver,” she faltered, “ have you seen 
this, too ? ” 

Then she threw herself impulsively into his arms. 

“ 0 Mr. Gulliver,” she sobbed, “ I couldn’t help it, 
could I ? ” 

“ My poor child,” sighed Mr. Gulliver, drawing her 
head upon his shoulder, and soothing her. 

But his tenderness was more fatherly than lover-like. 

Mr. Gulliver was at heart a true man, and in his 
view Arabella’s weakness was her security. With only 
himself to guard, he might have been too little care- 
ful. With her to protect, he could take no risks what- 
ever. The line must be drawn at absolute justice and 
propriety. 

“We must not only do right,” he said to her; “ we 
must think right and feel right. It is impossible for 
us ever to be more than friends. Whether we can 
continue friends depends entirely upon whether our 
wishes can stop there.” 

Mrs. Blanc’s assent was enthusiasm. She had heard 
(or had she only dreamed ?) of natures as noble as Mr. 
Gulliver’s, but she had never hoped to meet one. She 
had felt that there should be possible a communion of 
congenial spirits, so far above ordinary intercourse as 
to be indifferent to it. She agreed with Mr. Gulliver 
that this discovery of mutual affection should make 
their interviews fewer, and their conduct more circum- 
spect. Their love was based on the recognition in each 


148 


MK. GULLIVEK WKITES POETRY. 


other of the highest elements of soul and character. 
Its first condition was therefore thorough respect, and 
this demanded that each should be true to one’s self 
and to all one’s relations to others. Such a love was 
no temptation, but inspiration to all that is highest 
and noblest. 

So they parted with souls elevated by high purpose, 
and Mr. Gulliver lay awake all night blessing Provi- 
dence for making him worthy of a love so pure and 
noble. But he said nothing about it to Mrs. Gulliver. 

The next day was Saturday. There was no school, 
and Mr. Gulliver heroically resolved not to see Mrs. 
Blanc. But he spent all his time thinking of her. 
He ought to have written a sermon, but every idea was 
based upon and bounded by Arabella. 

“ Upon my word,” chuckled Mr. Gulliver, “ I feel 
like writing poetry! I’ll do it this minute.” 

And do it that minute he did, gleefully making the 
most of an inspiration altogether novel. 

“ What shall it be about ? ” Mr. Gulliver inquired 
of his heart, having laid before him a quire of paper 
with temptingly wide lines, and resolving, such is the 
force of habit, that no erasure or correction should 
mar the clear white surface. 

• “ The feeling that possesses me most,” he observed 
analytically, “ is joy at having discovered my other 
self, — the one being twin to my soul from all eternity. 
Now how shall I give it expression ? ” 

In clean-cut black, he wrote over the top of the page : 

TO AKABELLA. 

And then he sat, pen in hand, suffusing himself with 
melancholy rapture. 


DIFFICULTIES OF A BEGIN^i^^ER. 149 

“ What should I say to her if she were here ? Or 
rather, how shall I distil into a few aromatic lines the 
essence of all I can ever say to her and think of her ? ” 

After some verbal experiments, he began thus : 

“ Why throbs my joyful heart with vague unrest ?” 

That line pleased him, and he went on to look for 
metre and rhyme. 

“La la la, la la la la la la. 

La la la la, la la la la la breast. 

La la la la, \dila, la la la” 

Laboriously he filled these blanks till near the last : 

“ Why throbs my joyful heart with vague unrest ? 

Is it not bliss, that thou art, and art mine ? 

Then w'hy this discontent within my breast ? 

This groping, grasping, hungry ” 

The only word Mr. Gulliver could think of to fill 
the line musically was anodyne, and as that was hardly 
what he wanted to say, he gave up the stanza and 
began again. 

TO ARABELLA. 

“My little one,” 

I don’t know why he called her a little one. She 
was above the average height of women, and solidly 
put together. He couldn’t have lifted her over a fence 
to save her life. But some way it seemed to him a ten- 
der and fitting address. In fact, it almost wrote itself, 
and he went on to manufacture a metre to fit it, 

“ My little one. 

How strange it seems thou art so lately mine. 

For thou art all to me ; 

And when I see 

How close the tie that binds my soul to thine, 

CommUsioner Hume, J. 


150 


MK. GULLIVER WRITES POETRY. 


I wonder why so long 
Thou wert but of the throng. 

Oh ! why not sooner did my heart divine 
Its cheering Sun ? 

For Sun thou art. 

Rejoicing, brightening, quickening into life 
Before unknown. 

0 sweet mine own, 

Until I knew thee I had constant strife 
With sullen, moody pride, 

Longings unsatisfied. — 

Unstable purposeless, with doubtings rife, 

Sad was my heart 
Till it knew thee. 

Then, as the clouds from off a gloomy sea 
My doubts dispelled. 

My bosom swelled 

WTth joy and thankfulness and love to thee. 

1 live for something now ; 

The sunshine from thy brow 

Is health and inspiration unto me. 

I live for thee.” 

“ There,” said Mr. Gulliver, complacently, as he 
wrote the last line ; “ I believe that’s a genuine poem. ” 

He had composed it readily, occupying perhaps an 
hour. It gave pretty fair expression to one phase of 
his feelings, and the two or three lines that seemed 
most felicitous excited him enough to bring his fist 
down on the table with a suspired “ I’ve hit it! ” On 
the whole, he thought he must have struck a little 
poetic fire, and he read it aloud a few times to see if 
the inspiration had evoked melodious rhythm. 

It didn’t satisfy him, and he thought he would com- 
pare it with something of Tennyson’s. He opened at 


NO FOOL LIKE AN OLD FOOL. 


151 


the invitation in Hand, and he read that aloud. He 
thought he could perceive a difference. 

“ ‘ Would start and tremble under her feet^ 

And blossom in purple and red,’” 

he repeated. “ That has the true musical ring. Why 
can’t I write like that ? I don’t believe Tennyson 
ever felt that sentiment as deeply as I do at this 
minute, and yet see how limpidly and passionately he 
expresses what I have been drawling in rhyming 
prose.” 

Mr. Gulliver was discouraged. He even tore in two* 
his sheet of verses. But he copied them again, and 
he read them that evening to Arabella. The next day 
he preached an old sermon. He lived for some days 
in a sort of ecstasy. 

When Mr. Gulliver was asked by Gottlieb if he had 
“ nefer feel dees,’’ he had added to his reply that as 
he was forty-five years old it was reasonable to suppose 
he never should feel it. 

That was a mistake of Mr. Gulliver’s. There is in 
almost every nature a fund of sentiment, usually even 
of sentimentality, which will gush forth as soon as it is 
tapped. If it be left undisturbed till well into middle 
life it is likely to be the more violent when the outlet is 
furnished, not only because a greater store has accumu- 
lated, but because the imagination supplements it. 
The love-sick boy gushes with all the feeling in him,, 
but the love-sick man gushes with all the feeling in him 
and all the feeling that his observation and reading 
have suggested there ought to be in him. Xo wonder 
there is no fool like an old fool. It is perhaps quite 
as well for Pendennis’s future peace of mind, that 


152 


MR. GULLIVER WRITES POETRY. 


Ihe stormy waves of his boyish passion should dash 
^against the marble bosom of a Fotheringay. 

Mr. Gulliver had never met a Fotheringay. Till 
Arabella came he had been, so to speak, in bachelor 
meditation fancy free. With her, romance had en- 
tered into his life for the first time, and he yielded 
himself rapturously to the luxury of sentimental 
imagination. 

And she ? 

Well, I can tell what she did, but I flatter myself 
that I know I don’t know why she did it. When she 
reads this chapter (and read it she will, for she is still 
a teacher), and when she laughs over it (and laugh 
over it she will, for she is good-natured, and, besides, 
:she is so fond of attention that she had rather appear 
in this story as a siren than not to appear at all) — when, 
I say, she laughs over this chapter, she shall not laugh 
ut me *f or pretending to understand her. 0, no! It 
is years since I have seen her, and I have been long 
-enough away from her influence to have formed what 
seems to me an unprejudiced opinion of her character 
and actions. But I freely .admit that she could talk 
me out of that opinion in half an hour, and persuade 
me to accept any one of her dozen metamorphoses as 
the original and only Arabella. And so she can you, 
wise reader. If she discusses this chapter with you, 
,she will convince you, if she chooses, that Mr. Gulli- 
ver was a scheming villain, whose machinations only 
her instinctive womanhood enabled her to detect and 
toil; and that I — but never mind what she will say 
.about me. Only, don’t forget that I tell only the 
what; not the why. 


A RESPONSIYE KATUEE. 


15a • 


What she did, was to respond fully to Mr. Gulliver’s' 
feelings. They were feelings she never could have- 
originated. For instance, his main purpose was to be 
just to his wife, Arabella’s husband being too mythical 
to he considered. N’ow of herself Arabella never 
would have concerned herself as to how Mrs. Gulliver 
would-be affected by Mr. Gulliver’s affection for an- 
other woman. But when Mr. Gulliver’s heart vibrated 
with a chivalrous feeling of duty toward a wife he had 
not yet learned to love, Arabella’s heart responded, 
and beat in unison. Once having caught the key, it 
struck a fuller chord, and echoed back his feeble note 
in a rich diapason. This was why he adored her. All 
that was best in him came back from her enriched by 
broader sympathy and deeper intensity. How could 
he know that it was the varying wind which produced 
these noble harmonies, and that the harp itself was 
only a mechanical arrangement of cat-gut ? 

I do not mean that Mrs. Blanc was insincere. It is 
not villains who do most mischief in this world. A 
bad purpose is often recognized in time to be foiled. 
A wicked heart inevitably betrays itself. But the 
dangerous ones are those whose good impulses and 
quick sympathies gain your confidence, and whose 
weak and vacillating character betrays you. 

Mr. Gulliver’s sentiments were silly, but not ignoble. 
A true woman would either have pitied him or ridi- 
culed him ; in either case, she would have cured him. 
But Arabella echoed him, and thus allured him into 
recklessness. 

Mr. Gulliver fought hard, but he fought unassisted 
and not wisely. He resolved to keep away from Ara- 


.154 


MR. GULLIVER WRITES POETRY. 


bella, and for days his struggles were agonies. Finally 
there came a memorable Sunday. Mr. Gulliver 
preached his morning sermon with parched lips, and 
he prayed with trembling tongue, and a heart making 
its last struggle to seem sincere. He excused himself 
from Sabbath school, and he announced that there 
would be no evening service. All that afternoon he 
wrestled, but he dared not call upon God for help. 
Finally his will broke down, and the impulses he had 
repressed for years rushed over him in maddening in- 
nundation. He seized his hat, and almost ran to Mrs. 
Blanc’s room. He looked to her like one just rising 
from a fever. 

“ Arabella,” he hissed, “it is useless. We cannot 
live apart. You must fly with me this night. See, 
I have money. We will cross the ocean. You must 
go with me, or I shall go mad ! ” 

Mrs. Blanc was appalled. Was this the Genie she 
had amused herself by conjuring up ? Fly with him, 
indeed! It needed no moral considerations to deter 
her. It was well enough to indulge in a little senti- 
mental folly, but when it came to making l^erself an 
outcast, that was simply preposterous. And with a 
country-minister, forty-flve years old, afflicted with 
dyspepsia! Dangerous as Mr. Gulliver looked, she 
could hardly help laughing in his face. And yet she 
did not want to hurt his feelings, and she was puzzled 
to know how to get him home and to bed. Just as 
every resource seemed to fail her, her quick ear caught 
a footstep on the stairs. 

Mr. Gulliver had supposed that Arabella’s silence 
was due to womanly delicacy, naturally rather shocked 


THE TWO WOMEH CONFRONTED. 


155 


at his abrupt proposal, but sure to be swept down by 
the strong current of her love for him. Just as he 
thought she was about to yield, she exclaimed in great 
agitation : 

“ 0 Mr. Gulliver, Mrs. Ollapod Gulliver is coming! \ 
In his feverish excitement this interruption was 
maddening, and he cried out : 

“ Damn Mrs. Ollapod Gulliver! ” 

I am sorry for him, hut that is what he said. 

And his wife heard him. 

When the screen falls in the School for Scandal, it 
is customary for Mr. Joseph Surface to stand abashed 
for at least a minute of awful silence. I presume that 
is all right, and do not doubt that Sheridan’s original 
stage-directions require it. But the feminine mind 
moves quicker. In a like situation, Mrs. Blanc would 
have conceived her story instantly, and would have told 
it merrily, without pausing or faltering. 

When Mrs. Gulliver entered the room, Arabella 
rushed toward her in an overwhelming gush of affec- 
tion and relief. 

“ I am so glad you have come,” she began to say, 
poor Mr. Gulliver has been overworked, and — ” 

But there even she paused. For silently, sadly, but 
with unapproachable dignity, Mrs. Gulliver drew her- 
self up, and looked Mrs. Blanc full in the face. Be- 
fore that glance Arabella’s eyes fell. And there the 
two women stood, while Mr. Gulliver wondered. 

I doubt whether anything else could so soon have 
recovered his reason, as amazement to see Arabella 
quail before the superior womanhood of his wife. He 


156 


MR. GULLIVER WRITES POETRY. 


had never thought it possible to compare the two. 
While the one was a glorious woman, the other was to 
his mind still only a child. But in the presence of 
the two thus brought together, the scales fell from his 
eyes. He had guiltily lavished on an unworthy 
stranger the love his own wife so much better deserved. 
He had braved ignominy and pollution, to fly from his 
own wife with a woman unflt to tie her shoe-strings. 
As his folly flashed upon him, he covered his face with 
his hands and sobbed like a child. 

“ 0 Priscilla, Priscilla,” he moaned; “forgive me 
if you can, for I can never forgive myself. ’ ’ 

J^’ot another word was spoken, as Priscilla drew him 
gently from the room, and left Arabella still standing 
with her head bowed down. 


CHAPTER XI. 


\ 


THE ACADEMY CLOSES ABKUPTLY. 

For some days after the Sunday when evening ser- 
vice had been omitted, Mr. Gulliver was ill, too ill to 
be seen by any of his parishoners. 

“ Xo wonder,” they sighed; “ poor man, why should 
he try to do double work ? Is it not enough to prepare 
two such sermons as his, every week, without five 
days’ teaching ? ” 

Even Mrs. Blanc was refused admittance. She 
called every day. Every day Mrs. Gulliver met her 
politely, coldly, composedly, giving her no opportunity 
for advances or explanations. 

During these days, Mrs. Blanc was thoughtful and 
sober. Xo w and then she would make effort to dis- 
play her accustomed vivacity, but even her scholars 
could see that her wit had no heart in it. 

She wondered at this. Why should she be sad be- 
cause Mr. Gulliver by losing his reason had recovered 
it ? She knew that all was over between them. Her 
quick eye had lost none of the significance of his sur- 
prise to see her quail before Mrs. Gulliver. She had' 
quailed before Mrs. Gulliver. Mrs. Gulliver was a 
remarkable woman, as her husband would have learned 
long ago if he had been less absorbed in admiring him- 
self. Of course, now that he had learned it, he would 
adore and reverence and love her, as she deserved. 

(157) 


158 


THE ACADEMY CLOSES ABKUPTLY. 


But what was that to Mrs. Blanc ? What did she 
want with Mr. Gulliver’s love ? It could be of no pos- 
sible service to her, now that her school was prosper- 
ously started. Indeed, it had shown symptoms of 
being a passion very awkward to manage. It had be- 
guiled her leisure for the time. It had even given rise 
to some novel sentimental experience, to which, as a 
response to his seething love, she had resigned herself, 
all the time analytically examining her feelings to see 
if they were like what she had read about. It had 
suggested, if it had not fairly weakened in her, some 
■higher feelings, some real tenderness, some honest soul- 
sympathy, of which she was gratified to find herself 
still capable. On the whole, she had enjoyed and 
profited by it. 

But the novelty had already begun to wain, and his 
romantic attentions to grow tiresome, when his sudden 
insanity at once revealed her danger and provided an 
escape. The danger had been imminent, for if Mrs. 
Gulliver had not so opportunely appeared, a scandal 
might have arisen which would have jeopardized Mrs. 
Blanc’s school, if not her reputation. 

As it was, she was safe. The secret was known only 
to the husband and the wife, whose motives for pre- 
serving it inviolate were even more imperative than 
her own. On the whole, she ought to feel relieved 
that a complication so serious had resolved itself so 
harmlessly. 

So she reasoned, and yet she was sad, she knew not 
why. The love that was becoming something of a re- 
straint, almost an annoyance, like other blessings 
brightened as it took its flight. To her Mr. Gulliver 


MRS. BLANC IS SENTIMENTAL. 


159 


was not the great man he seemed to Constantinople. 
She had travelled much, conversed with many, seen 
the few who are really eminent ; and she recognized in 
the Eeverend Ollapod Gulliver only a country clergy- 
man of unusual singleness and tenacity of purpose. 
But after all thfere was much genuine manhood in him ; 
•and all that was genuine, he had with all his tenacity 
fixed upon her. While' she was assured of it, she had 
been indifferent. IS’ow that it was gone, she felt a 
sense of loss. 

It would be unfair to say that this loss of 
power over another was the only loss she felt. The 
tenderness, the sympathy his love had stimulated, had 
been grateful feelings. They had been evanescent. 
Too shallow for love, they had inspired only a silly 
sentiment, and this had soon evaporated. But, weak 
.as it was, it had been a glimpse of something better 
than her daily life, her habitual thought ; and she 
looked hack to it longingly. She cut this little slip 
■out of a newspaper, and sighed over it, and thought 
she understood it : 

“ Love holds me so ! 

I would that I could go ! 

I flutter up and down, and to and fro, 

In vain — Love holds me so. 

“Love let me go:— 

I geek him high and low ; 

I wander up and down, and to and fro 
In vain, in vain, — and life is cruel woe, 

Since Love has let me go.” 

But as the days passed by, and still Mrs. Gulliver 
was polite and cold and composed; as Mr. Gulliver 
^rew well enough to go to ride, and yet made no effort 


160 


THE ACADEMY CLOSES ABKUPTLY. 


to see her ; as at length they met, and she noted in his 
eye a start of wonder that this could be, the woman he 
had lately so madly and wickedly loved, she knew that 
the glamour had departed, and that she would be 
recognized even by him as scheming and shallow. 
Then she felt, first bitter, then indifferent, then 
defiant. 

“ At least that haughty wife of his shall never exult 
over my wounded affections,” she said to herself, with 
clinched teeth. Her gayety became fierce, her wit 
glittering. Her scholars admired her more than ever, 
but they feared her and almost shrank from her. This, 
too, she saw, and spent a night in tears of humiliation. 
Thereafter her girls began to cling about her once 
more ; but towards Mr. Gulliver she felt a resentment 
that was nearly hatred. 

At length he came to see her. He brought back all 
her tender, tearful letters, her picture worn thin with 
kisses, his half of a little gold dollar they had broken 
between them, and a heart from which the unholy love 
had gone out, but which was full of sympathy and 
penitence. 

He was prepared to take all the blame upon himself; 
to beg her pardon for arousing iii her a love he had no 
right to inspire and could no longer return ; to bless 
her for giving him his first glimpse of the power and 
beauty of true womanhood ; and to promise her that, 
although his eyes had thus been opened to the nobility 
of a wife who would thereafter enjoy the absorbing 
love she had always deserved, Arabella should be na 
loser, for he would ever be her grateful, penitent and 
steadfast friend. 


DID SHE THROW OFF THE MASK OR PUT OKE OH ? 161 

But Mrs. Blanc’s eyes glittered, as he entered her 
room, and before he could speak she had overwhelmed 
him with a torrent of flippant jests. She laughed 
merrily, as she opened her notes, one by one, and read 
extracts from them, with facetious comments. She 
gathered from drawers where they had been carelessly 
and promiscuously scattered (for this special occasion) 
all the notes and trinkets she had received from him, 
and pushed the heap across the table with the air of 
an actor removing his mask. Finally she tied up to- 
gether her own letters and laid them away, saying that 
it was too much bother to write them over again every 
time, and they would do just as well for the next man. 

“ To tell the truth,” she concluded, confidentially, 
“ I always have to go through this performance with 
the president of the board in order to get fairly started 
in a school. You know, yourself, you would never 
have given me this academy, if, before I broached the 
subject, I hadn’t got fairly intrenched in your sensi- 
bilities.” 

She ended with a ringing laugh, but Mr. Gulliver 
stood pale and still. 

“ Arabella,” he said, moistening his lips, and speak- 
ing slowly and painfully, “ Arabella, are you playing 
a part with me ? ” 

“ On the contrary,” she replied, carelessly, “ I have 
finished playing a part. I wanted the academy and I 
have got it; and what’s more, I have got a hold on 
your reputation, that makes me secure of your influ- 
ence. Why should I play a part any longer ? ” 

And this time her laugh was insolent. 

Mr. Gulliver leaned against the table, and his voice 


162 


THE ACADEMY CLOSES ABRUPTLY^ 


trembled, but his eyes looked into Mrs. Blanc’s with 
a gaze she could not avoid and that haunted her 
dreams for years. 

“ Arabella,” he said huskily, “ I once heard a man 
curse a woman. She had deceived him, as you have 
deceived me. I cannot curse you. May God, in his 
infinite mercy, bless you, now and always. But may 
I never look upon your face again.” 

And then he left her. 

IS^ext morning there was no school at the Academy. 
Mrs. Blanc had departed from the village as abruptly 
as she entered it. 


CHAPTEE XII 


AMONG THE COUNTRY SCHOOLS. 

Gottlieb Krottenthaler’s phenomenal progress in his 
studies was the more remarkable because he still gave 
so much of his time to peddling. On almost every 
Friday night he took the cars for Norway to replenish 
his stock. During the week he was continually finding 
a day to spare “ for my peeziness,” till every road lead- 
ing from Constantinople became familiar to him, and 
half the house-wives in town had chatted with him. 

For Gottlieb was a philosophical pedler. He was 
never disturbed by indifference or rudeness ; in fact, he 
often spent the most time where he was worst treated. 
He seemed to wear an invisible armor against insult, 
for a bullying man or a sharp-tongued always arouse 
his interest and stimulated his persistence. 

“ Dey pe my pest coostomers,” he explained, one 
day. “ De man mit hees kreat pig heart on hees 
sleeve, he pe open to eferypoty, und eferypoty haf sell 
him all he vant pefore I see him. Put te man mit ein 
pull-tog in hees face, und ein krating over hees pocket- 
pook, he keep off de crowd, und haf lots of money und 
needs to puy mit.” 

It was true that Gottlieb often sold goods where 
other pedlers failed, but he seemed just as contented 
if he sold nothing. Over and over again he would 
( 163 ) 


164 


AMONG THE COHNTKY SCHOOLS. 


bandy words with a gruff grumbler, anon verbally 
patting him on the shoulder, and anon harrassing him 
by seeming sympathy which happened to take a par- 
ticularly aggravating form, but always drawing forth 
from him an epitome of the current discontent of the 
neighborhood. 

And how he enjoyed a vinegar-faced gossip ! Her 
. abuse would usually fall first on pedlers in general and 
himself in particular. But Gottlieb’s good-nature was 
as impervious to insults as plumage is to Pluvius. Let 
a virago face him with arms akimbo, and Gottlieb 
would meet her looks with amused curiosity, reply to 
her maledictions with deference, and presently lead her 
to mention other grievances which oppressed her. On 
these he would bestow such intelligent and respectful 
sympathy that her tone would change from abuse to 
confidence, and Gottlieb would find himself the reposi- 
tory of her private and social griefs. Then he would 
inquire about the neighbors, and minister, and the 
school-trustees, and whether the teacher kept good 
order, and whether the store-keeper gave good weight, 
until he was as thoroughly acquainted with village 
gossip as if he had worn girl’s clothes to a missionary 
sewing-circle. 

By this time the question of his making sales would 
depend entirely on whether the woman had any money. 
Whether she bought anything or not, Gottlieb would 
part with her almost affectionately ; and when he was 
out of sight of the house, he would jot down her age, 
complexion, peculiarities of manner or speech and 
especially any expressions she had used which were 
novel or forcible. For Gottlieb was a statistician. 


A HARSH WELCOME. 


165 


So much of local gossip pertained to the school- 
teacher of the district — where he came from, who he 
was, why the trustee hired him, whether he knew 
much, what sort of order he kept, whether he was 
married, and, if so, whether he quarrelled with his 
wife ; whether he favored the big girls, and especially 
whether he favored any big girl in particular ; 
whether he paid his bills, whether he smoked and 
chewed and drank beer and played cards or billiards ; 
whether he was likely to he kept another term, 
whether he went to the institute, whether the big boys 
could catch him on hard probleihs, and whether he 
could spell aesophagus ; whether he took part in prayer 
meeting, and sat still in church, and had a class in the 
Sunday-school ; whether he was really a Methodist or 
was actually a Free-will Baptist, and only pretended 
to be a Methodist because he wanted to get on the 
right side of the trustee ; whether his license was 
second or third grade, and whether there was much 
difference, as commissioners are now ; whether he 
wouldn’t get arrested and fined for the way he whipped 
Tommy Dole, and whether it was true that he kissed 
Sally Ames when he kept her after school, — so prevail- 
ing were these themes of speculation, that Gottlieb 
never missed an opportunity to stop at the school- 
house and visit the school. 

Perhaps the unexpected appearance at the door of a 
foreigner with blue army overcoat and a pedler’s pack 
was a severe test of the teacher’s courtesy, for some 
of the pedagogues treated Gottlieb rudely. In one 
district, well up the mountain in the south-eastern 

Commiisioner Hume, K. 


ICO AMONG THE aOUNTRY SCHOOLS. 

part of jVlaska, Gottlieb knocked at the door. There 
was no response, and he knocked louder, thinking per- 
haps he was not audible, the school being very noisy. 
This time he heard two or three boys call to the 
teacher : 

“ Say you! somebody’s at the door.” 

“ AVhat’s that to you ? Shut up, and let him stay 
there,” was the gruff reply. 

Gottlieb thereupon opened the door and entered the 
room. It was a log school-house, with no other seats 
than one long, backless bench around three sides, on 
which the pupils faced the wall, with a level, hacked 
and ink-stained board for a desk. In the middle was 
a red-hot stove. The average temperature must have 
been ninety degrees, though it was lessened by the cold 
air that came rushing in between the logs and over the 
scholars’ feet. Two malicious boys and a stupid-look- 
ing girl were standing up for what was called a spelling 
class. The rest lounged about in every attitude but 
that of study, most of them with scarfs about their 
necks and colds exuding from their noses. 

So much Gottlieb took in at a glance; and it was 
well his eye was quick enough, for the moment the 
teacher saw him, he sang out, threateningly : 

“ Well, you blanked Dutchman, what do you want 
here ? ” 

“ I haf coom to veesit de school von leettle,” replied 
Gottlieb, humbly. 

“ Well, this ain’t no loafin’ place for Jews,” jeered 
the teacher, “ so you just git eout. — Say, fellers,” he 
added as an afterthought, “let’s see what the cuss has 
got in his pack.” 


ME. JONES MEETS HIS MATCH. 167 ’ 

Up jumped all the boys and two or three rushed for- 
ward, intending to throw Gottlieb down. But some- 
way when they got near him they did not like the look 
of his eyes, and they stood irresolute. 

‘ ‘ What in blank are you afraid of ? ” the teacher 
sneered. “ Can’t a dozen of you lay out one Dutch- 
man ? ” 

Gottlieb had in his hand a hickory walking-stick 
which always accompanied him on his travels. He did 
not raise it or perceptibly clutch it, yet somehow every 
boy there knew that it would come down remorseless 
and irresistible on the head of the first that approached 
nearer. So one of them said to the teacher: 

“ Well, Jones, you proposed this thing; suppose you 
sail in yourself.” 

“ Take your seats,” snarled Mr. Jones. “ For a set 
o’ chicken-livered cowards you’ll take the belt. As 
for you,” turning to Gottlieb, “ git eout b’ here, I 
tell ye.” 

“ On de whole, I tink I shtay von vile,” replied 
Gottlieb, remoA'ing his pack, and deliberately helping 
himself, to the only chair in the room. “ Go on mit 
de circus.” 

Fume as he might, Mr. Jones was helpless. Gott- 
lieb’s coolness had won the sympathy of the school, and 
every pupil enjoyed the teacher’s discomfiture. It 
was only half -past nine, and it would not do to dismiss, 
so poor Jones had nothing left for it but to call out his 
classes under the inspection of those cold, keen blue 
eyes. 

“ Class in ’rithmetic,” he snarled, and two boys and 
three girls came forward and stood on the floor. 


168. 


AMOKG THE COUNTRY SCHOOLS. 


1 “ TOiere does your lesson begin ? ” asked Mr. Jones. 

IX^ge 74,” 

“ D’vidin’ fractions,” 

“ Don’t know,” [-replied the class. 

“ Seventeenth sum,” 

“ Whar we left off,” 

There was neither blackboard, nor place for the class 
to sit. Only one girl had a slate, and only one boy 
and one girl had books. Mr. Jones borrowed the girl’s 
book, and told the boy with a book to take the girl’s 
slate and do the eighteenth problem. 

“ D’no how,” he replied, indifferently. 

“Well, who can do it?” asked Mr. Jones. The 
girl with the slate thought she could, and stood ' bal- 
ancing herself first on one foot and then on the other, 
and dividing her time between staring at the printed 
page, making sprawling figures, and rubbing them 
out again with the fiat of her hand, previously 
moistened by contact with her entire tongue. After 
full ten minutes, during which one boy pinched the 
other, and the other pinched a girl, and the girl told 
Mr. Jones, and Mr. Jones said if the boy did it again 
he’d take the head off him, and the boy did it .again, 
and Mr. Jones told him to take his seat, and the boy 
lounged to his seat, running his foot along under the 
bench on the way to kick all the legs and ankles within 
reaching distance — after all this and more like it, the 
girl with a slate said she guessed she had got it. 

“ What’s the answer ? ” asked Mr. Jones. 

“ 1^,” replied the girl.” 

“ That’s right; well done, Pheely,” said the teacher, 
examining the slate with apparent minuteness. “ Now, 
Tom, can you do the nineteenth ? ” 


THE PUPILS UNDER EXAMINATION. 109 

“ Ef you please, I like to see dot shlate,” said Gott- 
lieb, coming forward and holding out his hand. Mr. 
Jones tried to interfere, but too late. Curiously 
enough, the pupils showed a readiness to obey Gott- 
lieb which was new to that school-house. 

Selected from a mass of meaningless figures, and 
arranged, Pheely’s work was as follows : 

“Divide^ by 

A— Ans.” 

How you do dees ? ” asked Gottlieb, calling Pheely 
to him. 

“ Nvertdvisornprceedsumltplcation,” was the ready 
reply. 

“ Yaw, I see,” said Gottlieb. “ Veil, Pheely, which 
pe de te visor ? ” 

“ The biggest one, of course.” 

“ Vot make you tink so ? ” 

“ Why Jones says the divisor is always the biggest 
one.” 

“ Course it is,” broke in the teacher. “ How can 
you divide anything by something bigger than it is 
itself?” 

“ How many you have in your family vere you 
poard?” asked Gottlieb, turning to Mr. Jones. 

“ Six,” replied Mr. Jones, sulkily'. 

“ How many pie you haf for deener ? ” 

“ One.” 

“ How many pieces pe it cut into ? ” 

“Six.” 

“Den you defide one by seex, , don’t it ? a small 
noomper by a peeger von ? ” 


170 AMONG THE COUNTEY SCHOOLS. 

“ I don’t call that dividing one by six; I call it divid- 
ing one by one-sixth.” 

“ 0, do you ? Den vot you vould have if you mul- 
tiply von by von-seexth ? ” 

“ Six,” answered the teacher, after a moment’s 
pause. 

“ Den eef you haf von pie und I haf von seexth so 
many, I haf seex pies, don’t it ? ” 

“ 0, blank your pies,” said Mr. Jones, disgusted to 
hear the scholars snicker. “ If you are going to run 
this school, you’d better take out a stiUkit.” 

“Veil, Pheely,” and Gottlieb turned once more to 
the big, awkward girl beside him, “ as tings pe, I tink 
you do de pest you can. Now you see dot de defisor 
may pe either pigger or smaller as de oder ? ” 

“ Ye-e-s.” 

“Vot you call de oder ? ” 

It required the united efforts of the class to reach 
the word dividend. 

“ Now we haf talk as eef de tefisor pe de noomper 
tefitet. Pe you sure of dot ? ” 

Pheely wasn’t, though she said they had always been 
taught that way. A reference to the hook convinced 
her that she was wrong, and that she had inverted the 
dividend instead of the divisor. 

“ Now, how you infert him ? ” asked Gottlieb. 

“ Why turn the figures bottom-side up, uf course,” 
said Pheely, pointing to the slate. “ When you in- 
vert -y- you have -y-. ” 

“ 0 yaw, I see,” said Gottlieb. “ Veil, vot den ? ” 

“ Prceedsmltplcation. ” 

“ How pe dot ? ” 


THE PUPILS UNDER EXAMINATION. 


171 


‘ ‘ Adclnmratersf rnewnmratorndnomnatorsf rnewde- 
nomnator. ’ ’ 

“You link you add numerator in multiplication ? ” 

After a time Pheely admitted that she should have 
multiplied together her numerators and denominators. 

“ Veil, efen eef you should add, how haf you done 
dot here?” 

“ Add 21 and 4, makes 25, for new numerator, and 
8 and 13 makes 22 for neiw denominator.” 

“ Yaw. Veil, in de first place, eef you add gx 21 , 
vot kood pe it to turn de fikure ofer ? ” 

“ Why, the rule says to invert it.” 

“ But vot pe de use of inferting eef he make no 
deeference in de answer? ” 

“ 0, I don’t know.” 

“Veil, you tink 8 and 13 make 22 ? ” 

After consultation with the class, Pheely thought it 
should be 21, and further questioning convinced her 
that the should be •A-- Then the work was gone 
over again, the mistakes corrected, and the solution 
made to stand as follows : 

-V-T\=-V-x--^=W=8tt- 

“So de work was not quite so ‘right; veil done, 
Pheely ’ as you tought, Mr. Jones ? ” Gottlieb inquired 
of that unhappy individual. “ Pheely, who pe de 
school-trustee here ? ” 

“ WhyJ it’s my father,” said Pheely, blushing. 

“ Und vere do he leef ? ” 

“ In that red house, on the right-hand side of the 
road; ” and Pheely pointed through the window. 

“ Vill you lend me dees slate to take home for you ? ” 
asked Gottlieb. 


172 


AMONG THE COUNTEY SCHOOLS. 


“ 0, yes.” 

“ I vill see you more again, Pheely. Good morning, 
Mr. Jones,” and, with a bow, Gottlieb took up his 
cane and pack to leave the room. 

“ Oh I say now, Mister, don’t be hard on a feller,” 
begged Mr. Jones, abjectly ; “ you can’t expect much 
in a country district like this. I only get a dol- 
lar a day, and I have to pay twenty shillin’ for board. 
Just look at this old building, not fit for hogs to live 
in, and see what a rough lot of scholars these be. It 
ain’t my fault. I do the best I can.” 

“ I tink it pe not your fault dot you pe hiret,” re- 
plied Gottlieb, emphatically ; “ it pe de fault of a 
seestem dot haf no law to make dees ting eempossiple. 
Put you do not de pest you can. You haf no learn- 
ing for dees place, put learning pe not all. You might 
see dot de room pe so comfortaple as it can pe, und 
not mit a red-hot stofe, paking de air like ein pottery 
furnace. You might care dot dese leetle shildren take 
off dier scarfs und ofershoe, und not ko out mit de 
same clothes from ein huntert dekrees apofe zero to 
twenty pelow. You might shtop oop dese cracks 
petween de logs, vot pring in icy wind ofer dese leetle 
legs. You might pe kint und true und honeest in 
tealing mit dese leetle mints dot get from you deir first 
eempression. You might show dem py your own 
politeness to de stranger who comes in, efeh a poor 
Gherman pettier, dot de oonwreeten law of courtesy pe 
de corner-shtone of true etucation. Haf you do dese ? ” 

“ 0 you be blowed,” said Mr. Jmes, disgusted. 

But that noon he was dischargedT^^ 


CHAPTER XIII. 



A ROUTINE TEACHER. 

^Hfi-afternoon, Gottlieb stepped into a school-room' 
that seemed like a dungeon. It was dark, dismal, re- 
pelling. It showed somebody’s effort to keep it clean, 
but the effort was more impressive than the. cleanliness. 
Everything was angular, rigid, monotonous. Xot a 
curtain, not a picture, not a map, not an ornament re- 
lieved the sombre walls. The teacher’s desk was bare, 
save for one cheap bottle of ink, one accommodation 
holder and pen, and the few books used in recitation, 
arranged in distressful primness. 

She was herself a weary-eyed woman; she went 
through the day’s routine with mechanical regularity 
and lifelessness. Gottlieb recognized in her one of 
these unhappy beings who spend their lives in doing their 
duty, only because it is their duty. Of animation, 
buoyancy, cheerfulness, enjoyment, she knew nothing. 
If anything seemed to her pleasant to do, she doubted 
whether she ought to do it. To her, life was a wind- 
ing and grinding treadmill ; she found her only happi- 
ness in reflecting at the close of the day that she had 
persisted in the weary round until body and soul were 
exhausted. 

Of course her scholars showed the impress of her 
character. They were reasonably industrious, unreas- 
( 173 ) 


174 


A ROUTINE TEACHER. 


onably quiet, unreasoningly obedient. They were 
torpid even in play. An oppressive shadow hung over 
them. 

They respected their teacher. For years she had 
taught that school, and for years every one had spoken 
of her with deference. “ She is a God-fearing woman,” 
the minister said, and he was right. “ She is ree-liable, 
every time,” the trustee boasted, and he told the truth. 
“ She is a woman as don’t srink from no dooty,” was 
the sewing-circle verdict, and facts supported it. So 
the “ Hog-Holler Deestrick,” as it was called, looked 
with complacency and neighboring districts with envy 
upon Martha Eood; and all the time Martha Kood, 
fearing God, and doing her duty, was crushing out of 
the children of the district everything that makes child- 
hood happy and manhood promising. 

Gottlieb sat for an hour in his quiet, observant way, 
and then he asked: 

“ Vas haf dees shilder do dot dey pe sent here ? ” 

Miss Eood was never surprised, — she hadn’t life 
enough — but she thought it a curious question. What 
could this foreigner mean ? He must be thoroughly 
unacquainted with our institutions. 

“ Why they haven’t done anything,” she replied, 

this is a school.” 

“ 0 yaw, I know. You haf many name for ting in 
dees lant. Sometime you say preeson, den you say 
shail, den you say lockup, den you say chug, peniten- 
tiary, reformatory, house of refuge, shkool — I haf hear 
all dese name ; it is all one teeng. Put vas dees poys 
und kirls here haf do, dot dey moost kommen here ? 


A DUTIFUL WOMAN. 


175 


Haf dey shteel, lie, proke vindow, set parn on fire, 
someting like dot ? ” 

“ Why, no,” said the puzzled teacher, whose per- 
plexity no ray of native humor illuminated; “ these 
are good boys and girls, sent here by their parents to 
get an education.” 

“ Etucation ? Vas pe dot ? ” inquired the innocent 
German. 

‘ ‘ Education ? why knowing how to read and write 
and cipher and such things,” replied Miss Rood, as 
puzzled as though she was called upon to demonstrate 
an axiom. 

“Vas goot pe dot?” persisted the pedler, doubt- 


fully. 


“ What good ? why all good,” but Miss Rood once 
more floundered. “ A man has to have- an education, 
or he — he don’t amount to anything. What could a 
an do who couldn’t read ? ” 



V' A reading-class happened to be on the floor at this 
moment. Before the conversation began, the follow- 
ing paragraph had been read by each member of the 
class : 

But it is not merely three millions of people, the produce of 
America, we have to contend with in this unnatural struggle; 
many more are on their side, dispersed over the face of this wide 
empire. Every whig in this country and in Ireland is with them. 
Who then, let me demand, has given, and continues to give, this 
strange £,nd unconstitutional advice ? 

With the repeated reading of this paragraph, and 
the spelling of the polysyllables in it, the recitation 
was practically over. Had not Gottlieb begun to ask 
questions, one more paragraph would have been read 
in the same^way before recess. 


176 


A EOUTIKE TEACHER. 


“ Veel you permeet me to ask dees class some ques- 
tion ? ” asked Gottlieb, politely, and Miss Rood 
assented. 

“ Vas pe dees paragraph apout ? ” asked Gottlieb. 
No one could answer, yet the scholars were so listless 
that they hardly looked at one another in wonder at 
such a strange question. 

“ Pe it prose or poetry ? ” 

“ Prose.” 

“ How yo know ? ” 
r “ It don’t rhyme. ” 
j “ Lines don’t begin with capitals.” 

It’s just talking.” 

These replies were not simultaneous nor speedy. 

“ Vas kint of prose pe eet ? Shtory, heestory, dee- 
shcreeption, shpeech, sermon, essay — vas you tink ? ” 
The class decided that it was a speech. 

“ Who made eet ? ” 

It was some time before one of the class found at 
the end the name of Lord Chatham. 

“ Who vas Lort Chatham ? ” 

Nobody knew. 

“ Yen haf he leev ? ” 

Miss Rood had to suggest that it was in' the time of 
the Revolutionary War. 

“ Yen vas dees var ? ” 

“ Fourth o’ July,” replied one boy, promptly. 
Enough had already been said about the Centennial to 
enable the class to conjecture that the speech was de- 
livered a hundred years ago. It took some time longer 
to secure an opinion as to whether the speech was for 
the war or against ^it. The class had never heard of 


THE PEDLER MAKES SUGGESTIONS. 


177 


parliament, and thought on reflection that the address, 
“ My Lords,” with which the speech began was de- 
cidedly profane, though they had not noticed it, or 
indeed much else, when they read the fir«t paragraph. 

The three millions of people, they guessed must be 
the number of soldiers the Yankees had. They didn’t 
know how large armies usually are, nor could they tell 
the present population of America. II 

“ Vas he mean py de protuce of Amereeka ? ” asked 
Gottlieb. 

“ I know,” replied one boy, warmed into a semblance 
of activity; “produce is corn an’ wheat an’ oats an’ 
things;” but he could not tell just what connection 
corn and wheat and oats had Avith the sentence, or 
why the struggle was unnatural, or what wide empire 
was referred to. 

A whig was defined as something folks wear when 
their hair is all gone, and it was a novel intellectual 
triumph for the little girl who was the first to suggest 
any rational meaning for the sentence. She said she 
supposed it meant every old man in this country and 
Ireland, because it is old men who wear wigs. 

What strange advice it was that was given, the class 
did not know and could not discover from the context. 
The only scholar who had any definition for unconstitu- 
tional was a boy Avho had heard his father say that it 
^eant unhealthy. 

Miss Eood confessed that such unintelligent reading 
could be of little benefit to the class, hut attributed 
the fault to the books in use, which contained pieces 
so difficult and uninteresting. But Gottlieb showed 
her that if the class was vividly impressed with the 


178 


A KOUTIJ^E TEACHER. 


historical period, the dignity of the House of Lords, 
the momentousness of the occasion, the boldness and 
eloquence of Chatham would be a living inspiration, 
and every boy in school would be a greater and a better 
man for what he had learned from this reading lesson. 

Then Gottlieb drew from his pocket a morning paper 
from Picayuna, and a^ed the largest boy in the class 
to read the following: \ 

GRAIN. — WiiEicCnominal. Rye, quiet; sales at 88@89 in 
the street. Oats, at 42@46 for street lots; store and rail lots 
43@45. Corn, quiet ; sales at 60@61 for old western and 59i@ 
591 for new. Barley doing nothing. 

Neither he nor others of the class could make intel- 
ligent guesses at the meaning of this paragraph. Yet 
they were all farmers’ sons. Then Gottlieb read from 
other parts of the paper, including certain humorous 
items, and he showed Miss Rood clearly not only that 
her scholars had had no instruction in what was of 
prime importance to them, but that their minds were 
sluggish, unimaginative, without originality or resource. 

“But, what am I to do?” asked Miss Rood, when 
the children had gone out to recess. “ I have tried to 
do my duty; I don’t know how to do it any differ- 
ently; and yet I see that I have failed.” And she 
would have cried, had not a sense of responsibility to 
her position restrained her. 

“ Ef you vill geef me sharch of de shchool a few 
meenutes, I show you vas I tink,” replied Gottlieb. 
So when the scholars had taken their seats. Miss Rood 
asked them to give attention to the stranger. 

“ Poys und kirls,” Gottlieb begun, “ I pe koing to 
play mit you ein leetle kame.” 


THE PEDLEE MAKES SUGGESTIONS. 


179 


Play a game in school hours! The pupils could 
hardly believe their ears. 

“ I pe tinking of sometings,” continued the pedler 
“ und de kame pe for you to fint out vas I tink of.” 

Then he explained that they must discover it by 
asking questions which he could answer by “ Yes ” or 
“ No,” and after a time induced one shy little girl to 
inquire : 

“ Is it the stove ? ” 

After a dozen such questions^ Gottlieb suggested 
that by such isolated inquiries hours might pass before 
the right object was guessed. To be successful, the 
questions should each narrow down the possibilities, 
till presently the place and the kind of object being 
both known, but few conjectures would be necessary to 
locate it. The scholars entered into the game with 
heartier zeal, as it proceeded, and in half an hour be- 
came enthusiastic and not unskilful. The last exercise 
was as follows : 

“ I tink of sometings.” 

“ Is it animal ? ” 

“ No.” 

“ Is it vegetable ? ” 

“ No.” 

“ Is it mineral ? ” 

‘■‘Yaw.” 

“ Is it in sight ? ” 

“Yaw.” 

“ Is it on one of the walls of the room ? ” 

“ Yaw.” 

“ Is it on the north wall ? ” 

“ No.” 


180 


A ROUTINE TEACHER. 


“ Is it on the east wall ? ” 

“ Yaw.” 

“ Is it connected with a window ? ” 

“ No.” 

Then there seemed nothing mineral on the wall ex- 
cept the plastering, and the nails in the boards below. 
So the next question was ; 

“ Is it of iron ? ” 

“ Yaw.” 

“ Is it a nail ? ” 

“Yaw.” 

And a few more inquiries located the particular nail. 
Then Gottlieb pointed out to Miss Rood that in this 
exercise which they had so keenly enjoyed the children 
had indirectly learned to distinguish the three king- 
doms of matter, and considerable as to the principles 
of logical classification. But above all their minds 
were stimulated to spontaneous and healthy action. 
They were now ready for their regular studies, and the 
last half-hour of school would be of more value than 
the whole hour could have been without some such 
exhilarating impulse. Such exercises should be fre- 
quent, varied, always at hand as a resource when the 
school became torpid. 

“ But where shall I get such exercises ? ” asked the 
teacher; “ is ‘there any. book that tells about them ? ” 
But Gottlieb said no, there was no one book of any 
great value, that he knew of; he wished there was. 
But a great majority of the games used in the social 
circle were of an intellectual character, and if judi- 
ciously used, could be made of service. For instance, 
take a geography game. Let some scholar name a city, 


PLAYIJ^G A GAME IN SCHOOL. 


181 


giving the state or country, as London, England. The 
next is to instantly name some city of which the initial 
letter is the same as the last letter of the one first 
given.' London ends with n, and the next city named 
must begin with IST, say Newburyport, Mass. The 
next may give Troy, N. Y., the next Yonkers, Y. Y., 
the next Syracuse, Y. Y., the next Easton, Pa., and 
so on. 

In arithmetic, there are numberless ways of exciting 
interest. You may start them with the peculiarities 
of the number 9. Multiply any number by it, and 
the sum of the figures in the product will be 9. Thus 
9X9=81, and 8+1=9. 76X9=684; 6+8+4=18; 

and 1+8=9. Take any row of figures, reverse the 
order, find the difference of the two numbers, and the 
figures in it will amount to 9. Thus 6781 — 1876=4905, 
4+9+5=18 and 1 + 8=9. The same will be true of 
the squares or cubes of any two numbers consisting of 
the same figures with reverse arrangement. 74 — 47= 
27. 742—472=5476—2209=3267. 3+2+6+7=18; 

1 + 8=9. 

Here is a little trick that will mystify your scholars. 
Tell them to think of any number of three figures, to 
reverse the digits, find the difference and tell you the 
unit figure, whereupon you will tell them the rest of 
the remainder. The fact is, the middle figure will 
always be 9, and the sum of the first and last figures 
will always be 9. So if they say the unit figure is 8, 
you know the first figure is 1 and the whole remainder 
198. Thus if they took the number 472, they would 

CommUsioner Hume, L. 


182 


A ROUTINE TEACHER. 


have 472—274=^198; or 632— 236=: 399 ; ,594—495=^ 
099, etc. 

Again, if you let your scholars multiply the nine 
digits, either in order or reversed, by nine and' multi- 
ples of 9, you will surprise them by the peculiar pro- 
ducts obtained. 

Tell them about the Sieve of Erastothenes. Let 
them write as far as several hundred, the odd numbers 
beginning with three. ?^ow let them cross out every 
third number from three, every fifth number from five, 
every seventh number from seven, and so on, and the 
numbers left will be primes, of which there are 1,230 
less than 10,000. The sum of any two primes larger 
than two is an even number ; of any three primes larger 
than two, an odd number. 

Such exercises relieve your pupils from the idea that 
arithmetic is a dry study, because they suggest a cer- 
tain romance which is attractive to young minds. But 
they should be employed much less often than general 
drill in practical problems. You should mark off on 
the side of your room a rod, subdivided into yards and 
feet and inches. Then exercise your scholars in meas- 
uring by the eye. Let them guess the length and 
width and thickness of every object in the room. 
Teach them how many strides they take to a rod, and 
let them calculate the distances from their homes to 
the school-house. Then let them reckon what it would 
cost to lathe, plaster, paper, glaze, paint, and shingle 
the school-house. 

Above all, give them frequent exercises in rapid com- 
putation. Give them as fast as you can enunciate 
such abstract 'exercises as this: 4 add 6, add 5, divide 


DIVERSIONS THAT ARE INSTRUCTIVE. 


183 


by 5, multiply by 7, add 4, divide by 5, add 2, multi- 
ply by 7, add 1, divide by 2, multiply by 4, etc. ; or 
practical examples like this, equally fast : 

“ Took a dollar to the store and bought 4 lemons at> 
3 cents each, how much left ? two oranges at 5 cents- 
each, how much left ? a pencil for 3 cents, two slates at 
a shilling each, and an arithmetic for 46 cents, and 
spent the rest for slate pencils at two for a penny. 
How many did I get ? ” ^ 

Then there are dissected maps, games of authors and 
birds, the new spelling game where the material is only 
a box of letters, which you can cut out yourself, and 
over which I have sat up with Mr. Gulliver, Mrs. Blanc 
and Deacon Granger till eleven o’clock, each thor- 
oughly excited and bound to beat. These things are 
not out of place in the school-room, especially for small 
scholars and as a reward for good behavior. I have 
heard of school post-offices, where letters are written 
by the scholars to the teacher or to each other, with 
all the formality and all the interest of a regular cor- 
respondence. 

In short, the expedients for interesting a school are 
numberless, and it is a teacher’s duty to devise and 
employ them. 

But that is not all. Miss Rood. Don’t you think 
this room could be made more attractive ? I know 
the trustee is stingy and your wages are small, hut 
how many pleasant things you could introduce here 
without its costing either a penny. Would not your 
scholars bring each of them a picture, or some orna- 
ment, or in summer a flower, to ornament the walls ? 
Are there not about here maps of the county or the 


184 


A ROUTINE TEACHER. 


State or the country that you could borrow ? Would 
not your scholars gladly join with you in making ever- 
green mottoes, in bringing in the spring and summer 
flowers as they bloom, and the choicest autumn leaves ? 
You will And that the room is pleasanter to the chil- 
dren, not only because it is prettier, but because it is 
they who have made it prettier. And I shall be mis- 
taken if you find the trustee or district stingy in pur- 
chasing apparatus after a few months of such home- 
made adornment. 

But after all. Miss Eood (and Gottlieb looked at her 
more kindly and addressed her still more gently), 
after all. Miss Eood, what must always be the main 
attraction of the school-room ? Is it not the teacher ? 

Must she not be in herself pleasant to look upon ? 
You need not blush. Miss Eood. I can see that you 
have resigned yourself to the conviction that you are 
not handsome, and you have thought it made little 
difference how you were dressed, if your clothes were 
whole and clean. That is a mistake. Miss Eood. It 
is perhaps every one’s duty, — it is certainly every 
woman’s duty — ^to look as attractive as possible. 

You are wearing a brown calico dress, which you 
made yourself. I don’t doubt that it is made of good 
material and that.it will wear well, but the color does 
not become you. Your complexion is dark and this 
brown dress makes it dusky. You should wear a 
lighter color, and you should always wear some little 
touch of red — say a cherry-colored bow on your dress 
or in your hair. 

Besides, your dress does not fit you. You have a 
good figure. I notice that you sit erect, without lean- 


THE PEDLER GIVES MISS ROOD ADVICE. 185 

ing against the back of your chair — a habit very rare 
in this country and worth more than all the .pretty 
features from Maine to Georgia. And yet you encase 
this trim, erect, supple figure in a mere bag of a dress, 
that covers but by no means adorns. For twenty-five 
cents some dressmaker will give you a pattern by which 
you can make your dresses to fit as well as to cover 
your form, and you will be as surprised as your friends 
will be delighted at the difference. 

Then your hair should be differently arranged. The 
type of a woman’s face is oval, and if the countenance 
be naturally a perfect oval the hair may be combed 
straight down to the head, as yours is. But very few 
countenances have this natural form, and woman is 
given, as you are, luxuriant hair, that it may be so ar- 
ranged as to supply whatever is lacking. Your fore- 
head is too wide and square, and your hair instead of 
being plastered down should be puffed or crimped. 
This is not vanity, any more than it is vanity to make 
wheat into bread or trees into houses. It is simply 
making the most of what is given us, and that is every 
one’s duty. 

Much more was said in Gottlieb’s broken English, 
which we have condensed and paraphrased to save 
ourselves labor as well as the reader, and Miss Rood 
listened at first patiently, then eagerly ; at the last she 
wept softly. When Gottlieb had concluded, she looked 
up at him and said inquiringly : 

“I don’t know your name, sir ? ” 

“Can you pronounce Gottlieb Krottenthaler ? ” 
asked the pedler. 

“ Mr. Krottenthaler,” she continued, too earnest to 


186 


A EOUTINE TEACHER. 


respond to Gottlieb’s smile, “ I never saw you before 
and I have no possible claim upon you, and yet you 
have done me, this afternoon, more of the services of 
a true friend, than all whom I have ever known and 
loved. For thirty years I have prided myself on doing 
my whole duty. I see that I have failed, lamentably 
failed. I don’t know why you should have shown this 
kindness to me, but if you will sometime come here 
again, you shall see that I have profited by it.” 

Gottlieb had to pull out his big blue handkerchief 
before he shook her hand at parting*, and he passed a 
dozen promising houses before he resumed his duty as 
a pedler. But he did not regret the afternoon. 

It may seem strange to the reader, as it did to Miss 
Eood, that an entire stranger should successfully pre- 
sume to such intimate converse; but the fact is Gott- 
lieb was accurately observant, honestly sympathetic, 
and thoroughly in earnest. He thought she needed 
suggestions that he could give, and he approached her 
with a momentum of purpose to benefit her that would 
have borne down greater obstacles than her natural re- 
serve. Brutes are said to recognize their real friends 
by instinct. Might not Martha Eood have discovered 
as much by intuition ? 


CHAPTER XIV. 


AN UNCONVENTIONAL SCHOOL. 

On a little stream that ran down the mountain in the 
south-east corner of Alaska was a small cutlery-shop. 
It employed perhaps twenty hands, mostly Englishmen 
who drank beer as freely here as at home without dis- 
covering that in this climate the effect is more brutaliz- 
ing. A hamlet had grown up, mostly of dwellings 
built by the owner of the shop, with monotonous uni- 
formity of cheapness and ugliness. There was not one 
attractive feature for the eye to rest on. The shop was 
low and black, the workmen were sooty and beery, 

the women were coarse and slatterly, the children . 

But there were no children. While yet on the mother’s 
knee the baby drained its father’s mug, and almost as 
soon as they could walk, the boys and girls were given 
something to do in the shop. 

But for a year or two work had been scarce. Prices 
were low and the demand small. The men themselves 
had been put on half-time, and the children were re- 
fused work altogether. So the neglected school-house 
had filled up with perhaps the most stupid, malicious, 
hopeless lot of vagabonds to be found in the State. 
Teacher after teacher had been tried and had failed. 
One fled for his life on the first forenoon ; another was 
pounded nearly to death. The trustee was almost in 
(lb?) 


188 


AN UNCONVENTIONAL SCHOOL. 


despair, and had offered double the usual wages, when 
he engaged Contents Cadwallader. Gottlieb heard 
th^t his fellow-traveller was succeeding admirably, 
and he took the first convenient opportunity to visit 
the school. 

But as he approached he thought he must have 
chosen the wrong day. A furlong away he heard an 
uproar of voices, broken here and there by coarse 
laughter, and finally uniting into a rollicking song 
that smacked of the ale-house in movement if not in 
words. Just as Gottlieb reached the door, the schol- 
ars came tumbling out, sweeping him a rod away with 
their impetus. 

As soon as they saw what he was, they surrounded 
him with gibes and taunts, and were just pulling away 
his bundle and his stick, when from the school-house 
door out stalked the gaunt form of Contents Cadwal-, 
lader. With a stride or two he was at Gottlieb’s side, 
and with one or two movements of his long arms he 
sent three of the biggest boys sprawling into the snow, 
whence they picked* themselves up with the utmost 
good-nature. 

“ You’re still like postage-stamps — no use till you’re 
licked,” he shouted. “ Recess is over; get you back 
into the school-house.” To Gottlieb’s astonishment 
every boy started, and though they played leap-frog 
going in at the door they leaped in and took their seats 
without a murmur. Mr, Cadwallader shook Gottlieb’s 
hand heartily, ushered him in and seated him with 
great respect, and then gathered himself to launch out 
at the boys. He began deliberately but emphatically : 

“ The ancients used to tell a story about a man 


MR. CADWALLADER IN THE HARNESS. I8f^ 

named Sisyphus who got the gods down on him, some- 
way or other, and was set to work by them rolling a 
big round stone up a hill. So for all the ages he 
tugged and pushed and sweated, but just as he got it 
to the top something or other would give it a push and 
down it would roll to the bottom, Sisyphus running 
frantically after it and beginning his work all over 
again. 

“ There wasn’t any such man as Sisyphus. This 
story is a fable, but it was a mighty cute one. By 
Sisyphus the Greeks meant the schoolmaster, and his 
stone that almost gets to the top and then disappoints 
him is the schoolmaster’s work in trying to make any- 
thing out of such boys and girls as you are. 

“ Now I’ve been here six weeks, and I was just get- 
ting encouraged. 

“You never saw [turning to Gottlieb] a better lot 
of scholars to work, or any quicker to mind, or any 
more grateful for the outside things I do for them. 
We’re just a happy little family here. We had a de- 
bate before recess, and closed up with a rousing old 
song, and when the boys went out, full of vim and 
enthusiasm for the school, I felt proud — for you and 
for myself, too [turning to the boys again]. 

“ In just four 'seconds my pride got a tumble. 
There you were — you boys that had just voted that a 
republican form of government was preferable to a 
monarchical because it gave a man at once more free- 
dom and more protection — there you were pummelling 
and preparing to rob a stranger, like a crowd of street 
Arabs. Maybe you’d like to know who that stranger 
is. Then you just listen, and then hide your heads- 


190 


AN" UN^CON^VElsTIONAL SCHOOL. 


and brand it down deep into your hearts that the rest 
of your lives you will never get caught in such a 
scurvy trick again. 

“ Two months ago, I came over the hill to Constanti- 
nople, absolutely starving. I hadn’t slept in a bed for 
two weeks, or eaten a meal in forty-eight hours. I 
happened to meet this stranger, and someway, — I don’t 
know how ; I didn’t think I could ever do such a thing 
— I told him about it. What do you suppose he did ? 

“AVell, I’ll tell you what he did. He first took me 
to the hotel, and he gave me the biggest dinner I ever 
ate in my life. Then when he had got my body warmed, 
he began to take the chill out of my heart. I had 
been very unlucky for a few weeks, and I was discour- 
aged and chicken-hearted. He got me to tell him 
about myself, he cheered me up, he advised me to try 
and get a certificate so that I could take this school, 
and he insisted on lending me the money to buy an 
overcoat and a new pair of boots. In short, he made 
a man of me again, although he had never seen or 
heard of me before. And now, when he comes here to 
visit me and see how I am getting along, what greeting 
does he get from you boys ? What have you got to say 
for yourselves ? Speak ! ” 

The biggest boy in school got up,* blubbering. 

“ M-mister President! ” he gulped out. 

“ Mr. Smike has the fioor,” returned the teacher, 
with parliamentary dignity. 

“ Mr. President,” continued the young orator, whom 
Gottlieb recognized as the ring-leader in the attack up- 
on him and the first one knocked down by Contents 
Cadwallader— “ Mr. President, I move you sir that it is 


REPROOF THAT REACHED THE SPOT. 


191 


the sense of this body that we have made a set of 
darned fools of ourselves.” 

“ I move to amend by adding that if we ever do it 
again may we be blowed,” interrupted another. 

“ And that we ax his pardon,” added a third. 

“ I accept both amendments,” said Mr. Smike. 

“ And I second the motion,” said another. 

“You hear the motion of Mr. Smike as amended 
and seconded,” the teacher announced. “Are you 
ready for the question ? ” 

“ Question! question! ” called the boys triumphantly 
and Gottlieb got some light as to the nature of the 
noise he had heard at a distance. 

■“ Those in favor will signify it by saying ‘ Ay.’ ” 

“ Ay,’’’ shouted every scholar in the school, and a 
score of fists, some of them female, emphasized the 
vote upon the desks. 

“ Contrary minds.” 

Dead silence. 

“ It is a unanimous vote, and does you credit, boys,” 
said Mr. Cadwallader. “ I knew you didn’t mean any 
thing wrong, but you hadn’t been taught better. We 
have to take these things one at a time, and I don’t 
believe that you’ll ever make that mistake again. — 
First class in arithmetic.” 

Instantly books were out and eyes fixed on them. 
Contents made his work periods short, but he made 
them periods of work. Gottlieb was astonished at the 
zest with which teacher and scholars alike seemed to 
enter into everything. 

Contents was evidently in his element. He abounded 
in that sort of pervasive hiimor which it is the admira- 


102 


AN UNCONVENTIONAL SCHOOL. 


tion and delight of a sluggish mind to come into con- 
tact with, and he. had at tongue’s end a score of anec- 
dotes and illustrations for every subject, which he wove 
into his instruction with personal applications at once 
shrewd and kind. 

When one of the girls hesitated over the definition 
of division, he told her she always seemed to like to 
practise it, especially when another girl owned the 
apple. When a boy gave 160 as the number of rods 
in a furlong, Contents suggested that probably he was 
best acquainted with the kind of rod that made its vic- 
tim an acher. To a mite of a girl who could not count 
above twenty-five, he said he supposed it was an in- 
capacity of sex ; a healthy man of fair ability would 
add ten years to his age while his married sister was 
adding one. He told a pupil who persisted in omitting 
the ^ at the end of the 365 days in a year that no boy 
who ever fired a cracker ought to forget that every 
year had a Fourth of July. To a boy who had failed 
to learn the abbreviations “ gi., pt., qt., gal.,” he 
related the tormenting experience of the young man 
from the country who had come to the city with hi& 
sweet-heart, and found a store which advertised “ Ice 
Cream, one dollar per gal.” 

“ AYell,” he said, walking in, “ that’s a pretty steep 
picnic, but, Maria, I’ll see you through if I bust. 
Waiter, here’s a dollar; ice cream for this gal.” 

In geography, somebody gave Providence as the 
capital of Rhode Island. “ Always remember that 
Rhode Island has two capitals, one for the Rhode, and 
one for the Island,” said Contents, stepping to the 
board : “You wouldn’t write ‘ Rhode island,’ or ‘ rhode 


MAKING SCHOOL INTERESTING. 


193 


Island,’ would you?” Then he told about the boy 
who said Rhode Island was the only State in the Union 
that was the smallest; and about two gentlemen who 
wanted to fight a duel in Rhode Island, but were for- 
bidden by an officer under local law. One of them ex- 
claimed in great indignation, “ Never mind. Colonel, 
you step over into Connecticut, and I’ll step over into 
Massachusetts, and we’ll shoot right over his con- 
founded little State;” and about the Governor of 
Rhode Island sending a Thanksgiving turkey to the 
Governor of Connecticut, whereat the former state 
rose three feet out of the sea. 

Some question arising as to latitude and longitude, 
he told of a stupid fellow who pondered over the lines 
on the map in great perplexity. “ I see where these 
lines come on the Atlantic ocean,” he said, “ for I’ve 
often heard that Brittania ruled the wave; but she 
seems to have ruled the land, too.” Then he added 
the story of a boy who saw a long narrow black cloud 
stretching across the heaven, and exclaimed: “ Say, 
Jim, see there; that’s the equator, I bet! ” 

The class failing to keep in mind the distinction of 
zones, he told of the young lady from Boston who said 
she wouldn’t like to freeze at the nawth pole or broil 
at the south pole, but would prefer a happy mejum 
and would enjoy living at the equator. 

In grammar, the class could not explain the difference 
between the present and the future senses of the same 
form of the present tense. So he related how a man 
entered a crowded car, and after seeking in vain for a 
seat exclaimed: “ Why, this car isn’t going! ” Every- 
body got out, and he appropriated the first vacant seat. 


194 


AN UNCONVENTIONAL SCHOOL. 


Just then the train started, and when the passengers 
came back, fuming with indignation, they attacked 
him. “ You said this car was not going! ” “ Well, 

it wasn’t then,” he replied, “ but it is now.” 

Mr. Cadwallader’s supply of these anecdotes seemed 
inexhaustable, and always just fitted to the occasion. 
His recitations were therefore not only interesting, but 
exceedingly profitable ; for what fixes a nice point in 
one’s mind so firmly as an apt story ? 

Gottlieb was delighted, and urged Contents to come 
and visit him at Constantinople. Contents came, he 
saw Polly Granger, and he was conquered. The vil- 
lage was five miles away, but thereafter he attended 
church there with unvarying regularity, and at least 
two nights a week he greased his heavy boots and 
plowed through the snow to Deacon Granger’s. The 
deacon conceived an instant liking for him. His frank- 
ness, his blunt sincerity, his exhaustless good-humor 
made him an agreeable companion; and though Jere- 
miah Slack sneered at him and Polly snubbed him, 
everybody else learned to welcome him. As Mrs. 
Gulliver expressed it, his presence raised the spirits of 
an entire party about ten degrees, and he was voted to 
be a social acquisition to the village. 

But though he had quick wit and ready tongue and 
warm heart for everybody. Contents Cadwallader had 
eyes only for Polly Granger. In this devotion his man- 
ner was as frank as in everything else, and presented 
a striking contrast to the sneaking adherence, half 
tyrannical, half servile, of Jeremiah Slack. There 
were those who thought they saw under Polly’s curt 
indifference to his attentions a constant mental com- 


MAKT^^G SCHOOL IHTEEESTIHG. 


195 


parison of him with Jerry, which could result only to 
the latter’s disadvantage. But the problem was more 
complicated than usual to the village gossips, because 
one element present baffled all their conjectures. Was 
Gottlieb himself in love with Polly ? Xobody could 
tell, but many thought that if he was, his persistence, 
his rising reputation in the village, and Deacon 
Granger’s staunch favor would make him the most 
formidable of the rivals. 

Meanwhile, Polly tossed her head, and invariably 
chose the arm of Jeremiah Slack. 


CHAPTEK XV. 


AN UNEXPECTED ALLY. 

On the Sunday afternoon before the close of the 
winter term of the’district school, Grottlieb found Polly 
Granger alone in the parlor. 

“ Polly,” he said, seating himself for a serious talk, 
‘‘ Polly, why for you nefer do or say vas you mean? ” 

Polly willingly laid aside her book. Gottlieb’s con- 
versation was never wearisome, and could not fail to 
be agreeable if it was about herself. 

“ I thought I had the reputation of being quite too 
ready to say what I mean,” she replied, saucily. 

“ You haf de reputation to do it always, put you haf 
de consciousness to do it nefer,” returned Gottlieb, 
nodding his chin and looking her straight in the eye. 
“ AVhat do you mean ? ” 

“ Dees. You lif de life of one trifler. You take no 
ting in earnest. All moost be grotesque. De pig und 
de leetle, de high und de low, de vulgar und de holy, 
all haf from you de same bantering indeeference.” 

Perhaps no other person living could have said just 
that to Polly Granger. Gottlieb’s words probed like 
the surgeon’s lancet, but they were uttered with the 
surgeon’s skill and with more than the surgeon’s sym- 
pathy. Polly opened her heart to him. 

“I know it,” she sobbed; “I am the imhappiest 
girl in the world.” 


( 196 ) 


AJs" UN'FAITHFUL MOTHER. 


197 


“So I tink,” said Gottlieb, calmly; “ de girl of 
eighteen mitout earnestness, mitout purpose, mitout 
pelief, pe de saddest creature dot de sun shone on.” 

“ But what earnestness, what purpose, what belief 
are possible to me ? ” cried Polly, passionately. “ Look 
at my father: a truer, nobler, more generous man 
never lived, and yet every hand and every tongue are 
against him, and every scheme he ever undertook mis- 
carried. Look at my mother. You have lived in our 
family till I may speak freely, for you know all and 
more than I could tell you. What has she ever done 
to make any one else happy ? Whose comfort did she 
ever consult but her own? On whom has she the 
slightest claim of gratitude ? and yet she has everything 
her narrow mind allows her to wish for. From her 
own stand-point her life has been a complete success. 
From his stand-point, my father’s life is an utter failure. 
Which deserved to succeed? which ought to have 
failed ? Tell me that, and then look at them, and tell 
me if sarcasm is not my birthright.” 

“ You moost not forget she pe your mooter,” inter- 
posed Gottlieb, as Polly paused. 

“ 1 do not forget that she is my mother. Every- 
thing but that I can forgive her. 0, Gottlieb, I am not 
so heartless as I seem. You do not know how I have 
longed to love my mother. But she never seemed to 
have even the instinct of affection for me. When I was 
an infant she never nursed me or cared for me. When 
I was clean and smiling she would occasionally amuse 
herself with me or display me to her friends, but the 
moment I became troublesome she turned me over to 

Commissioner Hume, M. 


198 


AN UNEXPECTED ALLY. 


the hired girl. As long ago as I can remember I had 
learned I was sometimes to be caressed and sometimes 
to be repulsed, according to her mood. I was called a 
spoiled child, but from my earliest recollection I knew 
that' while my father indulged me because his love was 
stronger than his judgment, my mother left me to my- 
self from selfish indifference. 

“ I do not believe in all that is said of the ingratitude 
of children. There are children who have nothing to 
be grateful for. They did not ask to be born, and it 
was no blessing to be born, and then neglected by par- 
ents who shirked their responsibilities. The mother 
has every advantage. Her babe is taught by instinct 
to cling to her, and is for years clearly dependent upon 
her. It trusts her and clings to her. Whose is the 
fault, that as it grows older its little soul is shaken to 
see that mother capricious, selfish, untruthful, neglect- 
ful, unjust, perhaps angry and revengeful ? To deserve 
the love due a mother, she must be a mother. My 
mother has wronged me most in that she has robbed 
the word of its meaning. How have I envied my com- 
panions when they deferred some decision ‘ till they 
could go home and talk it over with Mother. ’ I have 
lio home, no mother, no friend.” And Polly sobbed 
convulsively. 

“You haf mooch right in vas you say,” replied Gott- 
lieb kindly, “but you haf not all right. Ye see clear 
vas pelong to us ; ve see not so clear vas pelong from 
us. Some teeng you like you haf not. It ees sad; I 
pe sorry for you. Someteeng you haf das almost all 
haf not, — health, strength, veelth, peauty, ein father 
aple to to for^you almost all hees loving heart prompt. 


AN UNFAITHFUL MOTHER. 199 

and who you pe prout to say ‘ He pe mein father. ’ 
All dees, und more you haf. Now vas to you of your 
duty to dees father, and to yourself? Haf you not 
tink some time ‘ Hees life pe not pleasant here ; I vill pe 
eine tochter so hint, so true, so vorthy, das he may pe 
happy in me und forget de rest ? I will not pe absorb 
in myself und my trouple. I vill tink of all dose 
apout me, und eef I moost pe oonhappy, at least I will 
make somebody else more happy for me.’ ” 

“It is easy to say this, Gottlieb,” replied Polly, 
sadly, “ but oh! so hard to do it. I know I am selfish, 
and I have tried, sometimes, to make home pleasanter 
and my father happier. But there again my mother 
is sure to interfere and my father to yield to her, and 
I feel as though I had only made him more uncom- 
fortable. 

“ You see,” she continued, thoughtfully, “ I haven’t 
the knack of getting on with people. If I know a 
thing is hollow within, I can not talk pretty things 
about the surface. I suppose that is why I have no 
intimate friends. I can’t tell my real thoughts to a 
girl whose mind is divided between the young fellow 
who went home with her last Sunday, and the bonnet 
she is going to wear to-day. So I have got into the 
habit of talking persifiage ; and I am surprised myself 
to see how frivolous talk leads to frivolous action and 
frivolous thought. I haven’t spoken in a year as I have 
spoken to you this afternoon, and I know this talk has 
started a current of serious thought that will make me- 
a better girl.” 

“You can prove dot to me,” said Gottlieb signifi- 
cantly.” 


200 


UNEXPECTED ALLY. 


“How?” 

“ By not lower yourself no more to go mit Meester 
Slack.” 

Polly sprang to her feet, white with passion. “ You ! 
you too!” she hissed; “are you like the rest? Must 
you he so greedy for my father’s money that you affect 
sympathy for me and win my confidence, only to act 
as a spy, a traitor to me, and use your influence for 
your own selfish purposes ? I know why you staid here 
all winter, Gottlieb Krottenthaler. I know why you 
hoarded at this house ; why you have insinuated your- 
self into my father’s trust and good-will ; why — shame 
on me that I was so easily cajoled — you have worked 
on my feelings this afternoon. You want to be my 
father’s son-in-law. You want his farms, his bonds, 
his money. Yon do not love me. I am glad to speak 
first and save you from perjuring yourself. And you 
shall never have me. I know you have won over my 
father, for you have played your game as shrewdly as 
you have calmly and dispassionately. But, mark my 
words, you shall never have me; never; never! ” 

And she strode proudly from the room. 

But Gottlieb smiled softly. 

^ Jl< >li jji 

That evening. Contents Cadwallader came over to 
tea. Though he was an invited guest, Polly refused 
to appear, nor did she come down stairs till church- 
time, when Jerry Slack called for her. Even then she 
refused to go into the parlor, where Gottlieb and Con- 
tents were sitting, but marched off majestically. 

As Contents rose to follow the ill-assorted couple, 
Gottlieb stopped him. 


POLLY DETECTS A SUBTERFUGE. 


201 


“Suppose we not go to-night,” he said; “I haf 
teeng to say to you.” 

Contents sat down rather reluctantly, and Cottlieb 
went on: 

“ Vas you tink ? Pe we not two fools ? ” 

“ Fools ? what for ? ” 

“To lofe dot girl.” 

“ Speak for yourself. I love her, and I don’t think 
I am a fool for it. Besides I should keep on loving 
her just the same if I knew I was a fool for it.” 

“How pe dot?” 

“ I don’t know. The moment I saw her I loved her, 
and I have loved her ever since. The very thought of 
being with her intoxicates me. At this moment, for 
the sake of being where she is and looking at her, I 
had rather be in church, snubbed by her, and obliged 
to see that detestable Slack ogle her, than even to sit 
here in confidential talk with you, the best friend I 
have in the world. There isn’t any reason for it. It 
is so; that is all.” 

“ But dot pe silly.” 

“ Very likely. I merely state a fact. I don’t ac- 
count for it or apologize for it.” 

“ But vas can come mit it? She geef you no atten- 
tion, she go eferyvere mit Meester Slack, it look dot 
sometime she marry him. Vas you do den ? ” 

“I don’t allow myself to think of that. While 
there’s life there’s hope, and until she is Mrs. Slack, 
I shall never give up trying to make her Mrs. Cadwal- 
lader.” 

“ Put vy you vant her for Meesis Cadvallader? See 
you not she pe selfish, rude, oonladylike ? ” 


202 


AN UNEXPECTED ALLY. 


“It may be so, though I had rather yon wouldn’t 
say it,” replied Contents, thoughtfully, “ but it doesn’t 
make any difference.” 

“Do you know ? ” he added, after a moment’s pause, 
“ I have learned that I am not the first to love without 
apparent reason.” 

“ AVho else haf done it?” asked Gottlieb, with 
amused curiosity. 

“ Why when I got my certificate from Commissioner 
Hume,” said Contents, “ he said that he should call 
on me before the close of the term, and should expect 
me to know something of the elements of physics, and 
to be able to converse intelligently about two plays of 
Shakspere that he named. I read those plays and 
some others, and was astonished to find myself inter- 
ested. One night I had read till I was tired, and was 
looking idly over the last pages of the book when I 
found these verses among the sonnets : 

“ ‘ In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes. 

For they in thee a thousand errors note ; 

But ’tis my heart that loves what they despise. 

Who in despite of view is pleased to dote; 

ISJor are mine ears with thy tongue’s tune delighted, 
Nor tender feeling, to base touches prone. 

Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited 
To any sensual feast with thee alone ; 

But my five wits non my five senses can 
Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee. 

Who leaves unswayed the likeness of a man. 

Thy proud heart’s slave and vassal wretch to be. ’ 

“ Now, if Shakspere was as silly as that over such 
a mistress as his, I have nothing to be ashamed of in 
my love for Polly. 


A TEST OF LOVE. 


203 


“In fact, Gottlieb,” and Contents spoke with con- 
fidential conviction, “ I believe it’s a pretty good test of 
love to love the very faults. Anybody can admire ex- 
cellencies, but the lover loves the woman as she is, 
faults and all. The painter might find a score of 
imperfections in her face, but what cares the lover? 
It is not her individual features that are dear to him, 
but it is her face. So her character may have a thous- 
and faults, but they make her what she is, and he 
would not have her otherwise.” 

“ Den you vould encourich und develop her faults 
after you marry, I suppose, so you make her individu- 
ality more deestinck?” suggested Gottlieb. 

“ No,” said Contents, “I would love her so truly 
and heartily and manfully that she could not help be- 
ing worthy of it, and together we would grow dearer 
to each other as we grew older and stronger and better. 
If I loved a pretty face, or a pleasant voice, or a kind 
heart, I might be disappointed ; but I love Polly Gran- 
ger, and if she is ever mine it shall be my fault if I do 
not every day love her better and with better reason.” 

“ Contents, you pe ein true man, and worty mit any 
woman,” said Gottlieb; “ I vill help you all I can, dot 
Polly pe your vife.” 

“You will help me?” cried Contents, starting up 
with beaming countenance ; “ you will help me ? Why, 
don’t you want her for yourself? ” 

“ She tole me dees afternoon she vould not haf me,” 
replied Gottlieb, casting down his eyes with humility. 

“ 0, I didn’t know you had got that far,” said Con- 
tents, with a surprised whistle. “ Never mind, let’s 
get over to the church before meeting is out.” 


CHAPTER XVI. 


THE TERM AND THE STORY END TOGETHER*. 

Jerry Slack’s winter term closed with an exhibition. 
AVinter terms in Constantinople always closed with an 
exhibition, and the people flocked to the school-house 
on that afternoon as unanimously as they staid away 
all the rest of the year. In fact, the exhibition was 
an Institution in that region, and like other institutions 
it had certain stereotyped features. 

For instance, it always began' with a prayer from the 
Rev. Ollapod Gulliver, and it always ended with a 
speech from that gentleman, pointing out the inestima- 
ble benefits of a free common school. Between this 
prologue and epilogue, the drama consisted of five sets 
of three or four recitations and declamations, inter- 
spersed with music of some kind or other, and ter- 
minating with a present of an autograph album to the 
teacher, and congratulatory remarks from any citizen 
present who happened to have political aspirations. 

Xor was there much variety in details. The Boy 
always stood on the Burning Deck, while a Soldier of 
the Legion lay dying at Algiers, and Sheridan was 
Twenty Miles Away. Friends, Romans and Country- 
men lent him their ears, although He came not there to 
Talk, for they called him Chief and did well to call 
him Chief who for a dozen years had been annually 
(204) 


A SCHOOL ENTERTAINMENT. 


205 


personated by the most chicken-breasted boy in school. 

The girls were no better. They braided their hair 
and wore pantalettes and swayed to and fro, occasion- 
ally sucking a finger between the stanzas as they as- 
sured the audience that at Midnight, in his Guarded 
Tent, the Turk lay dreaming. Life was Real, Life was 
Earnest, and if they chanced to fall below Demosthenes 
or Cicero, a Voice replied, far up the Height, Mrs. 
Bardell, gentlemen, was a Widow; yes, gentlemen, a 
Widow. 

But silly and inappropriate and ineffably weak as 
the thread-bare selections were rendered, they pleased 
the people. In a sleepy country hamlet the perform- 
ance seemed in its way dramatic, and as you and I take 
a new pleasure in hearing Fatinitza if we happen to 
spend Sunday at the same hotel with the opera troupe 
and get on chatting terms with Kantchukoff and Izzet 
Pasha and Imanvona, so the villagers listened with a 
sort of wondering amazement to see Tommy Brown 
who was spanked yesterday for stealing sugar, declare 
that he knew not what others might say, but as for 
him, give him liberty or give him death, while Molly 
Tweddle, who generally displays her stocking down at 
the heel, calls to bold Charlie Macree to come over, 
come over the river to she. 

Of course any institution so thoroughly established 
depended very little upon the general success of the 
school. For instance, matters couldn’t have gone 
much worse than during the past winter: in fact it was 
hinted that Jerry was able to stay in school at all only 
because three of the ugliest boys had taken a fancy to 
him as a fourth hand at euchre, and preferred to keep 


206 THE TERM AHD THE STORY END TOGETHER. 

him in the village. Only two days before, he had 
aroused intense indignation by whipping a little boy 
unmercifully after school, and there was talk of a war- 
rant against him : though the village lawyer advised the 
father, a poor man, not to go to law, as the jury always 
sided with the teacher. 

But now that the last day had come, all this was for- 
gotten, and for the afternoon Jerry was the biggest 
man in the village. He really had little to arrange 
except to let the scholars do over again what they had 
done the year before, but he made a good deal of bustle 
about it, and he really felt an approach to honest pride 
as he saw the room crowded with visitors to the school 
of which he was the master. 

But he had other sources of gratification. One of 
them was, that he had persuaded Gottlieb to make a 
fool of himself. He had induced him to take for his 
selection, 

‘ ‘ ‘ Will you walk into my parlor ? ’ said the spider to 
the fly,” 

and he had drilled him with a sort of fiendish ingenuity 
in the most outrageous of accents and gestures. Poor, 
simple Gottlieb had followed his instructions implicitly, 
and at his last rehearsal he certainly offered a spectacle 
to move the world to consuming laughter. 

“You tink I haf dot right, Meester Slack?” he 
asked anxiously. 

“Daniel Webster himself couldn’t do it better,” 
Jerry replied, nursing his chuckles till he could ex- 
plode with his comrades; and he put the piece at the 
very end of the programme, just before the presenta- 


THE OVERCOAT IS DOFFED. 


207 


tion to himself of the customary autograph album. 
AVheu the afternoon came, he was at first provoked 
that Gottlieb insisted on wearing his old blue army 
overcoat to his seat, and, being puffed up with his vic- 
tory in the whipping- case and his importance on this 
occasion, he might have ventured to insist, and tried 
again to bully Gottlieb. But he happened to think 
that the blue army overcoat was the one touch needed 
to make Gottlieb utterly ridiculous, with his 

“ Pretty fly, pretty fly;” 

so he let him have his own way, and passed the word 
around among the boys to be ready for fun when Gott- 
lieb was called for. 

The exercises went off about as usual, and the audi- 
ence took everything good-naturedly. It was a fine 
audience, too, for Constantinople. Besides the citi- 
zens, many had gathered from other parts of the 
county. Contents Cadwallader was there, of course, 
and so was Assemblyman Granger, from Scotia, and 
Judge Leach from Norway, who brought with him 
Miss Mary Lowe, preceptress of the high school there. 
It had been expected that Commissioner Hume would 
be present, but he sent a politely-worded excuse, and 
on the whole Jerry was quite as well satisfied to have 
him away. 

Everything moved so smoothly that Jerry became 
quite pompous, and began to believe he was a better 
teacher than he had supposed himself. When he came 
to call Gottlieb, he had a momentary compunction 
that was almost relenting. For the moment, unex- 
pected success often inspires unexpected virtue. But 


208 THE TERM AND THE STORY END TOGETHER. 

only for the moment. When he looked at Gottlieb, 
all his rancour returned, and he winked at his com- 
rades maliciously as he announced : 

“ We always keep our best to the last. The final 
declamation will be ‘ The Spider and the Fly,’ by Gott- 
lieb Krottenthaler. ” 

Sure enough, Gottlieb kept on his old blue army 
overcoat as he walked forward to the platform. But 
when he got there, he took it off, and displayed a well- 
fitting suit beneath. Then he ran his fingers through 
his hair, and showed a forehead that the milk-bowl 
style of barbering had concealed; and while Jerry 
Slack stared at him in open-mouthed astonishment,, he 
spoke his little piece as follows : 

“ My friends I have heard considerable regret ex- 
pressed this afternoon because Commissioner Hume is 
not present. But Commissioner Hume is present. I 
AM COMMISSIONER HUME!” 

To say that in that school-room you could for an in- 
stant have heard a pin drop, would not be strictly ac- 
curate ; not to say that you could have heard it strike 
the floor after it got through dropping would be 
absolutely true. Roderick waited. He saw Polly 
Granger flush and hide her face. He saw Jerry Slack’s 
under-jaw fall and his eye trace out a path to the door. 

When the people had recovered from the shock of 
his announcement, and were looking at one another, 
ready to begin buzzing about it, Roderick went on : 

“ When I had the honor to be elected commissioner, 
I knew nothing whatever of country schools. I had 
never attended one, I had never taught one, I had 
hardly ever visited one. I knew that if I began my 


POLLY IS PENITEl^T. 


209 


round of visits in an official way, most teachers and 
pupils would be at once put on parade, and I should 
have little opportunity to become acquainted with the 
real working of the schools. 

“ So I came to this town, isolated both by position 
and by trade from the rest of my district, in disguise, 
and in disguise I have attended school here almost an 
entire term, and have visited every school in the town- 
ship, some of them two or three times. On Saturdays 
you understood that I went away to buy goods. In 
fact that has been my office-day at Norway, and all my 
examinations and correspondence have been conducted 
there. On the whole, I do not think I could have 
spent my time more profitably. 

“ Xow you would like to know what I have observed 
about your school. AVell, in the first place you have 
had no school at all, and you will not draw one cent of 
public money for these thirteen weeks. This is because 
Mr. Slack is not a ‘ qualified teacher ’ ; he holds no 
teacher’s certificate.” 

“I beg your pardon,” said Deacon Granger, “but 
I have his certificate signed by you in my pocket. He 
was to have received his pay for the term’s work after 
school to-night, and I told him he must show me the 
certificate before he got the money. He handed it to 
me at recess.” 

“ Yes, after he heard I was not coming. Sheriff, be 
kind enough to stop him and hold him in custody [for 
Jerry was edging toward the door]. The question of 
forgery will come later ; just now this warrant is 
enough to hold him. It charges him with assault and 
battery on Willie White. As he was not a legal teacher 


210 THE TERM AND THE STORY END TOGETHER. 

at the time he punished the boy, he had no right what- 
ever to touch him, and no court can refuse to sentence 
him. Of course he can draw no wages for this term’s 
work, as Deacon Granger cannot pay him a dollar of 
the district’s money. I have here a series of misspelled 
letters, the last dated I observe, later than this alleged 
certificate, in which he begs for a certificate and tries to 
evade an examination. They will be sufficient to 
prove that my name on the certificate is forged.” 

As the sheriff led him away amidst general execra- 
tion, Polly Granger cast a glance at Jerry that made 
him quite ready to go. Then she looked Eoderick 
full in the eye. 

‘ ‘ Is there one word I can say to excuse myself ? ’ ’ 
she asked; “ have you one atom of respect for me?” 

“I can best answer that,” replied Roderick, “by 
saying that I think you worthy to be the wife of the 
best friend I have in the world,” and he brought Con- 
tents to the front. “ I shouldn’t yield you to him so 
readily if this little woman had not a prior claim upon 
me,” he added, and he introduced Mary Lowe. 

Polly never could discover how it was that when she 
ought to be so humilated and miserable, she was made 
so happy, that afternoon. Nor was it till three years 
later, when Roderick Cadwallader was two months old, 
that she whispered to her happy husband : 

“ To tell the truth. Con., I knew I loved you best 
of the three, but 0, how wilful I used to be! ” 


i 


STANDARD TEACHERS' LIBRARY, NO. 6- 


Bardeen’s Eoderick Hume. 

The Story of a New York Teacher. Pp, 319. Cloth, $1.25 ; manilla, 50 
cts. This is one of the 22 best books for teachers recommended by Chancel- 
lor W. H. Payne in the New England Journal of Education for Nov., 1893. It 
is also one of the books desci-ibed by W. M. Griswold in his “A Descriptive 
List of Novels and Tales dealing: with American Country Life.” 

Roderick Hume took possession of me, and the book was finished in one 
sitting that lasted beyond the smallest hour. I have joined the crowd in 
your triumphal procession. The characters are as truly painted as any in 
Dickens, and the moral is something that cannot be dodged.— Professor 
Edward North, Hamilton College. 

My confinement at home gave me an opportunity to read it carefully, 
which I have done with great delight. I can certify that it is true to life. 
I have had experience in country and village schools as well as in the 
schools of the cities. The picture is true for all of them. I know too well 
how self-interest, jealousy, pi’ejudice, and the whole host of meaner mo- 
tives ai’e likely to prevail in the management of school affairs anywhere. 
That the people should know this and yet entrust the management of their 
schools to men who are most likely to be influenced by personal considera- 
tions is strange indeed.— My memory brings to mind an original for every 
portrait you have drawn. — Andrew J. Rickoff, former Sup’t of Schools, Cleve- 
land, O. 

Teachers cannot fail to be greatly benefited by the reading of the book. 
Roderick’s address to his pupils is a compendium of the best points in the 
highest kind of school management. Miss Duzenberrie’s victory and Yic 
Blarston’s closing remarks ought to teach lessons of warning to many 
teachers who are even the most in earnest about their work. Mary Lowe 
is a beautiful model of a teacher, and no one will be surprised that Roder- 
ick should make her his helpmate instead of his assistant. It is a capital 
story, and we recommend it strongly to every Canadian teacher. Each one 
should get a copy for himself, as he will wish to read it more than once. 
— Inspector James L. Hughes, in Canadian School Journal. 

In the columns of The Bulletin, in 1878, appeared a serial story which at- 
tracted the attention of educators in all parts of the country. It was en- 
titled Roderick Hume, and was professedly ” the story of a New York teach- 
er.” It was written with the specific view of portraying certain phases of 
the modern graded school. The narrative was not designed as a satire, 
though a vein of humor ran through it all ; nor was it to be taken as an au- 
tobiography, though the author’s own experiences were more or less inter- 
woven with it. The interest of the story increased from month to month, 
and widely extended the reputation of The School Bulletin and its editor. 
Letters received from all parts of the country revealed, in fact, a phe- 
nomenal interest in its outcome. * * * Subsequently it appeared in book 
form, and it has since held a unique place in American literature.— 
Schoclmaxter in Comedy and Satire, p. 453. 

C. W. BARDEEN, Publisher, Syracuse, N. Y. 


THE STAHDAED TEACHERS' LIBRARY, No. 61. 


Nicholas Comenius. 

As Roderick Hume is a picture of the New York school principal of 
1870, so Nicholas Comenius is a picture of the Pennsylvania schoolmaster 
of 1860, when new ideas of educational methods began to come into conflict 
with the old. It is a vivid portrayal of the schools, the teachers and school- 
officers, the institutes, the book -agents, and all the educational features of 
that period, and deserves a place in every collection of books on education. 

From the Governor of Pennsylvania, Daniel H. Hastings. 

“ For the last few nights the disturbances in Luzerne county have com- 
pelled me, together with General Snowden, Adjutant General Stewart, and 
the Attorney General, to be in almost constant communication with our 
troops at Hazleton; and while sitting about the telephone and telegraph 
for two nights, the intervals have been occupied in reading ‘ Nicholas 
Comenius.’ During that time I read every chapter aloud to my comrades, 
and we unanimously agreed that I should write you this letter of thanks 
for such an interesting and delightful contribution to our Pennsylvania 
literature. I have always thought the ‘Vicar of Wakefield’ the most 
charming book in our language. I now think your book comes very close 
to it.” 

From the State Superintendent of Pennsylvania, N. C. Schaeffer. 

“ Many books are made of nothing and for nothing and get nowhere. 
The book here presented is not of that class. In my judgment it is a valu- 
able contribution to our educational literature. . , . J’he author of Nicholas 
Comenius deserves the special gratitude of those who feel an interest in 
rescuing from oblivion the factors that gave us our beneficent system of 
Common Schools.” 

From the Deputy State Superintendent of Pennsylvania, Henry Houck. 

” Nicholas Comenius is one of the most interesting books I ever read. 
It is written in charming style, eloquent and tender in the tribute it pays to 
the pioneers in the cause of education, and yet full of encouragement and 
inspiration for every teacher. This book should be in every library and 
every home.” 

From the School Gazette, Harrisburg, Pa. 

‘‘ Nicholas Comenius, or Ye Pennsylvania Schoolmaster of Ye Olden 
Time, by William Riddle, of Lancaster, Pa., is the latest addition to educa- 
tional fiction. While it is being sold with such books as the Hoosier School- 
master and Roderick Hume, it is being compared to the Vicar of Wakefield 
and to the schoolmaster of Drumtochty in the Bonnie Brier Bush. . . . The 
volume has in it wit, humor, instruction and entertainment. Its illustra- 
tions are as expressive as those of an illustrated volume of Dickens, and 
there is as much flavor in it as in Roderick Hume, and as much substance 
as in the’ Evolution of Dodd.” 

IGmO, pp. 492 ; 42 Illustrations. Manilla 50 cts; Cloth, $1.50. 

C. W. BARDEEN, Publisher, Syracuse, N. Y. 



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